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SMITHSONIAN DEPOSIT 






Bi-Centennial Celebration 



OF THE 



B OAR D O K 



American Proprietors 



ill 

-2^ 



OF 



East New Jersey. 



At Perth Ainboy, Tuesday, November 25, 1884. 




NEWARK, N. J,: 

Press of the Advertiser Printing House. 

1885. 



AT THE semi-annual session of the Council of Proprie- 
tors, at the Surveyor-General's office in Perth Amboy, 
N. J., on the third Tuesday of May, 1884, it was resolved 
that the approaching two hundredth anniversary of the 
Board of American Proprietors should be commemorated 
by appropriate exercises, and the Executive Committee 
were authorized to make the necessary arrangements for 
that purpose. 

A meeting of the Executive Committee was held at Perth 
Amboy on the second of July, to carry out the above reso- 
lution. Plans for the exercises were matured and the work 
of preparation begun. It was carried forward in successive 
meetings, with the results given in the following pages. 

The public addresses were delivered in the City Hall, 
and the collation was served in the same building. There 
was a large and appreciate audience present, and much in- 
terest was shown in the occasion which had brought them 
together, as well as in the matters presented by the speakers. 

The Executive Committee are glad to make public 
acknowledgment of the attention shown them by the Mayor 
and Common Council of Perth Amboy, and by the com- 
mittee of ladies and gentlemen who assisted in the enter- 
tainment of the visitors; and their thanks are especially 
due to the gentlemen whose able, appropriate and inter- 
esting addresses graced these commemorating exercises 

Charles E. Noble, President, 
George H. Cook, Surveyor-General, 
William M. Force, Register, 
Hon. Amos Clark, Jr., 
Timothy Lord, Esq., 
U. B. Watson, Esq., 

Executive Committee. 



CONTENTS 



I. — HisTORTCAL Address by Hon. Cortlandt Parker, 
of Newark, N. J. 

II. — Statements, with Exhibition of Maps, explanatory 
of the Location and Boundaries of East New 
Jersey, by Prof. George H. Cook, Surveyor- 
Qeneral, of New Brunswick, N. J. 

III. — Address: "The Influence of the Proprietors in 
Founding the State," by Prof. Austin Scott, 
of Rutgers College, New Brunswick, N. J. 



Mr. Parker's Address, 



A few weeks ago, England and America sympathized 
in the celebration of the centennial birthday of a great 
Hebrew philanthropist, a most interesting and praise- 
worthy reunion. To-day we celebrate here in their an- 
cient and original home the bi-centennial anniversary of 
the organization of a body, once Lords by title, and, in 
fact, of New Jersey and of her domain ; no representa- 
tive creation "of the people, by the people and for the 
people," but acquiring the title to soil and Government 
too, by conveyance from the British crown ; from whom 
the title to every foot of land in New Jersey springs ; 
and among whom, even after Government was sur- 
rendered, her chief and most influential citizens were to 
be found. Little by little the domain, the possession of 
which gave the Proprietors consequence, has passed 
from their hands. What is left in their control is now 
of comparatively slight value. But thei;e is enough 
remaining to make the Board still possess great conse- 
quence. And though but a ghost of its former self, it 
is proper and right that they should meet upon this 
day, look back on the two hundred years which have 
passed, and render the tribute of their respect to the 
wise, energetic and enterprising men who were their 
early predecessors. 



The existence of a separate Board or Council of Pro- 
prietors from whom all titles are derived, instead of 
obtaining them from the governing power, as is the 
case, I believe, in all the other States of the Union, is a 
fact which, well understood among native Jerseymen, 
almost always seems strange to those who are not. 
And, therefore, it may be well, familiar as is the topics 
to state succinctly how it came about that we had in 
New Jersey from the beginning, and have now as the 
fountain of all title, a private body of landowners. 

The doctrine of English law was that discovery and 
conquest gave title, as to all heathen and uncivilized 
countries, to the British Crown. To use judicial lan- 
guage (C. J. Kirkpatrick in Arnold v. Mundy, i Hal- 
stead R. i): " When Charles II. took possession of this 
country by his right of discovery, he took possession of 
it in his sovereign capacity. He had the same right in it 
and the same power over it as he had in and over his other 
dominions, and no more. This right consisted in grant- 
ing the soil to private persons for the pusposes of settle- 
ment and colonization ; of establishing a government, of 
supporting a governor, and of conveying to him all 
those things appurtenant to the sovereignty, commonly 
called royalties, for the benefit of the colonists." 

Both discovery and conquest, it is claimed, gave the 
British crown the title to New Jersey.* " The English 
first discovered and took possession of this part of North 
America. Being at war with the States of Holland, 
they were driven out by their' enemy, who took pos- 
session and built the city of New York, calling it New 
Amsterdam. They extended their settlements into New 

*Wall and Scott arguendo, I Halstead i8, 50. 



Jersey, particularly into the adjacent counties of Bergen, 
Essex, Monmouth, Somerset and Middlesex, the first 
European inhabitants of which were generally Hol- 
landers. But in 1664 the English reconquered the' 
territory and expelled the Dutch Government. The 
King thus gained a new title by conquest of a civilized 
nation." On March 12, 1664, Charles TL, by royal 
patent, granted New Jersey to his brother James, then 
Duke of York, afterwards Charles' successor upon the 
throne. He immediately took possession. Thus the 
landed property of New Jersey is held direct from 
the King of England. 

This grant of the Duke gave not only the property 
in the soil, but also the right and power of government. 
No other title to the soil than his was ever recognized 
by the law. It was unappropriated land, a savage 
wilderness, a great waste. " To such property the law 
appoints the King as owner, because there is no other. 
Moreover, it is a fundamental principle of the common 
law, that all lands, even those of private persons, are 
held of the King. Where there is no private owner, 
therefore, all persons must claim through him." (3 Bl. 
Com. 49, 50.) In respect to the old settled and granted 
lands, this may be a fiction of law, but it is truth and 
history here. It was a newly discovered wilderness 
conquered by the King of England ; it was the King's 
from necessity, and belonged to him solely, substantially 
and beneficially. 

Shortly after this deed, James, Duke of York, con- 
veyed the land and the government to John Lord 
Berkeley and to Sir George Carteret. These men had 
been distinguished for their loyalty during the civil war, 
and the grant was an evident reward. Carteret had 



been Governor of the Island of Jersey, and was distin- 
guished for his defence of it against the troops of the 
Parliament. Hence the name Nova Cesarea or New 
Jersey. 

Phillip Carteret, the first Proprietary Governor, with 
the first settlers under Berkeley and Carteret, arrived in 
New Jersey in the Summer of 1665. By the treaty of 
Breda in 1667, New Jersey was formally ceded by the 
Dutch to the King of England. ' This gave rise to a 
new grant, July 29th, 1674, by the King to the Duke of 
York, and bv the Duke to Berkeley and Carteret anew. 
In July, 1676, the province was divided between the 
two Proprietors, Carteret taking East Jersey, and 
Berkeley West. Thereupon, Carteret, by will, devised 
his plantation of New Jersey to trustees to be sold for 
certain purposes, by him stated, in 168 1-2. The trustees 
and his widow, executrix, sold all East Jersey to twelve 
Proprietors, who, again, conveyed half of their interest 
to twelve others. This conveyance was strengthened 
by a release to the twenty -four by the Duke of York, 
in 1682. 

Each Proprietor had a twenty-fourth interest in the 
l)r()ijerty, inheritable, divisible, and assignable, as if it 
were a farm instead of a province. And by these means 
the estate has come down to those who now own the 
the property. Every foot of ground in the State has 
once belonged to these Proprietors, and belongs to its 
present owner, as their successor, by and through the 
rules ot Common and Statutory Law. 

The rules of the Proprietors, forming an agreement 
between them, have established two modes of convey- 
ing titles in severalty to their lands. One is b)^ letters 
patent — a plan pursued in the earliest period, but long 



ago abandoned — the other by what is called warrant 
and survey, the method followed for many years past. 
It is thus clearly described by Chief-Justice Kirk- 
patrick: " The Proprietors of New Jersey are tenants 
in common of the soil. Their mode of securing the 
common right is by issuing warrants from time to time 
to the respective Proprietors, according to their re- 
spective and several rights, authorizing them to survey 
and appropriate in severalty the quantities therein con- 
tained. Such warrant does not convey a title to the 
Proprietor ; he had that before. It only authorizes him 
to sever so much from the common stock, and operates 
as a release to testify such severance. This is mani- 
festly the case when the Proprietor locates for himself. 
When, instead of locating for himself, he sells his war- 
rant to another, that other becomes a tenant in common 
with all the Proprietors pro tanto, and in the same 
manner he proceeds to convert his common into a 
several right. It is true that the survey made in pur- 
suance of this warrant must be inspected by the Sur- 
veyor-General, approved by the Board, and registered 
in their books ; but all this is for the sake of security, 
order and regularity only, and is by no means the 
passing of the title. It proves that the title has passed, 
but it is not the means of passing it." 

As survey after survey has been made upon warrant, 
approved and registered, the domain of common land 
has diminished in extent. But at least until all New 
Jersey has been so disposed of this Board must continue 
to exist. 

The United States Government owns, or rather, has 
owned, all the great West through conquest or through 
treaty. Therefore, a party desirmg land goes to the 



12 



Government officer, and on complying with established 
regulations, gets a patent or a deed. The States re- 
spectively own lands within their boundaries. They 
acquired them, each for itself, by conquest or by treaty, 
or later, by taxation and sale therefor. In New Jersey, 
however, our Legislature has nothing at all to do with 
our waste or unappropriated land. It all belongs to the 
Proprietors, to those, namely, who own what are known 
as Proprietary rights, or rights of Proprietorship, and 
is subject to the disposition of the Board of Proprietors. 
Any one who holds one quarter share of Propriety, I 
understand to be admissible to a seat as one of the Board. 
I hope it is not invidious for me to add, just at this 
point, that it is qiiestionable whether the i)lan followed 
for so many years, in disposing of unappropriated lands 
in New Jersey might not have been improved upon. It 
certainly has been susceptible of much abuse. Surveys 
have, of course, and necessarily, taken precedence ac- 
cording to record. Hence, careless and unwary people 
have, more or less frequently, lost their lands. And 
again, blanket or " including " surveys have been 
allowed — surveys, that is, which have comprised within 
their limits other surveys theretofore made, and which 
leave dispute possible as to where the boundaries of ex- 
cepted surveys are, and as to how much land is lying 
outside of them and within the boundaries of the inclu- 
sive one. I venture to think, beside, that sufficient 
attention has not been paid to the registration and 
perpetuation of beginning monuments. Nor am I 
quite clear that the practice of avoiding, in surveys, 
the mention of any monuments but the beginning 
one has contributed to j^eace and the avoidance of 
dispute concerning boundaries. 



^3 

It is questionable, may I be permitted to suggest, 
whether it would not have been wise, if feasible, to have 
made, early, correct maps of every township in the State, 
upon which each return and survey as made should be 
laid down, and which would thus exhibit always to the 
eye, Avhether there was unappropriated land within the 
bounds of that township and what and where it was. 
Such a scheme, or one similar to that under which the 
great State of New York was laid out, mapped and 
divided into sections, would have contributed, I think, 
to that certainty in regard to boundaries of land, which 
should be and doubtless has been the great motive of a 
Board sustaining the dignified position towards the 
community of New Jersey, always occupied by this 
ancient and venerable body. Even now it would seem 
not to be too late for action of this nature ; not, indeed, 
that the Proprietors themselves can be justly called 
upon to undergo such an expense, especially in view of 
the small area still belonging to them. But would it 
not be policy tor the Proprietors to sell and convey to 
the State all their interests and rights remaining in its 
soil, and for the State to buy and then to cause complete 
surveys, such as those sketched, to be made, with the 
view of perfect certainty, and that boundaries now exist- 
ing but not clearly established, may be free from future 
disturbance? This seems to me to be an argument for 
such a purchase, closing forever the existence of this 
anomal}^ in practice as to the devolution of land titles, 
additional to that of thereby settling all disputes between 
the State and the Proprietors, growing out of the 
language of the early grants, the surrender of Govern- 
ment to Queen Anne, the acquisition afterwards, by the 
State, through the Revolution of 1776, of the rights of 



14 

the crown, and all other possible claims. It is time, 
many think, that this impcriuiii in iiupcrio, this Lord- 
ship over ungranted land, should come to an end. 

But I confess that these explanations and suggestions 
are scarcely in place to-day, dedicated as it is to the 
memory of those who first composed the Board, and 
their immediate successors. We have to do with the 
past — perhaps with the past only. Who and what 
manner of men were they, these early Lords Proprietors ? 
What sort of a country was this now fair and thriving 
Jersey, in those far away times ? 

Subjects which have filled volumes can hardly be 
adequately, or with any approach to adequacy, treated 
on an occasion like this. All that can be done is to 
present some faint glimpses of early days ; of the men 
who lived in them, and of the fair land we now inhabit. 

The now well-known book of George Scot, of Pit- 
lochie, reprinted and annexed to the excellent work of the 
late William A. Whitehead, " East Jersey under the 
Proprietary Government," with several letters appended, 
gives us very full knowledge of the early attractions of 
our beloved State. It is true, Scot's book presents in- 
ternal evidence that it was written as a recomendation 
to emigration. And yet exaggeration in these days was 
slight compared with such works now. He published 
his book in 1685. It is quaint, learned, prolix, and shows 
him to be a single-hearted religionist of the Scottish 
t3'pe. Yet his description of New Jersey as it then was 
is exceedingl)^ interesting, and evidently reliable. He 
extols its climate — the same, he says, with Naples — the 
fertility of its soil, its convenience of situation, lying upon 
that " vast navigable stream called Hudson's river, and 
also upon the sea, along which it stretches 100 miles or 



more ;" its harbors, especially that noted " Sandy Hook 
bay," its fisheries for " whales, coadfish, colling and 
hakefish, and large mackerel," for sturgeon, scalefish, 
eels and shellfish, as oysters, its rivers and rivulets, with 
their finny inhabitants, its meadow lands along their 
banks; its fine timber, such as good oak, "fit for ship 
ping and masts," and also chestnut, walnut, poplar, cedar, 
ash, fir; its fertility, being cleared, " which yields a vast 
increase, not only of Indian corn, which is a very whole- 
some food, but of English grain, such as wheat and 
barley, whereof it usually yields betwixt the 20th and 
30th fold, and with far less labor than in Britain ; its 
products, such as flax and hemp, its grass, its fruits, as 
grapes, plums, mulberries and also apricots, peaches, 
pears, apples, quinces, watermelons, which are in 
England planted in orchards and gardens, but grow 
there with far less labor ; " its game, as deer, connies and 
wild fowl of several sorts, as turkies, pigeons, partridges, 
plovers, quails, wild swans and geese, ducks in great 
plenty ; its domestic animals, as horses, cows, hogs and 
some sheep ; its minerals ; its furs, beaver, mink, raccoon 
and marten skins. He celebrates the fewness of the 
Indians, their peaceableness, their usefulness to the colo- 
nists, their friendliness, being conciliated by purchasing 
their lands instead, of compelling their submission by 
force of arms ; but most does he dwell on the freedom 
guaranteed by the grants and concessions, especially on 
what he regards as the perfection of religious freedom, 
in that, " to be a planter or inhabitant nothing is required 
but the acknowledgment of one Almighty God, and to 
have a share in the government, a simple profession of 
faith in Jesus Christ, without descending into any other 
of the differences among Christians, only that religion 



i6 

may not be a cloak for disturbance." He celebrates the 
rapid growth of the colony in population and enumerates 
its settled to\yns, such as Shre\ysbury, \yith Colonel 
Morris' iron mills, his manor, etc., the \yhole population 
computed at 400; Middleto\yn, \yith about 50o,and among 
them a Captain John Brown, not quite so famous as he 
of later date and immortal memory, of whose body and 
soul we all hayc heard ; and also Richard Hartshorne, 
whose name and race haye come down to our day, 
famous on the yery spot where their great ancestors 
bled and died. He mentions also Piscataway or Piscat- 
awa, a town which has not kept pace with his expecta- 
tions — Woodbridge, Elizabethtown and Newark or 
jNIilford. " In this town," he says, " hath been a Court 
of Sessions, held between this and Elizabethtown.'' It 
is the most compact town in the proyince, and consists 
of about one hundred families, and of about 500 inhabi- 
tants. He has a good deal to say of Berghan, and 
makes out that all the population of the colony equals 
700 families and 3,500 people. 

A letter of Thomas Rudyard, Deputy-Governor of 
East New Jersey, to a friend in London, dated May 30, 
1683, is 'the fullest and most succinct account of the 
country and its people. (" East Jersey Under the Pro- 
prietors,'' page 410.) 

It was the day of small things, this infancy of New 
Jersey. Its first Legislative Assembly met May 26, 
1668. Thirty pounds was levied on the different towns 
to defray the public charges — five pounds on each of 
the six towns. When Philip Carteret came, first Gov- 
ernor of the colony, he found at Elizabeth, his future 
residence, four families. What a kingdom that must 
have seemed to him, a youth of twenty-six, clothed 



17 

abroad with the title of Governor of the Province of 
Nova Cesarea, when he came to this wilderness and 
found what was its population ! He was equal to the 
occasion. As he left his vessel at the port, he went to 
the settlement with a hoe on his shoulder that all might 
see that he, like the inhabitants already come, was to be 
a planter. A good young man was he, who endeavored 
with all his might to maintain the peace, and increase 
the property of the infant province. He had not a 
peaceable time. Indeed, anything like constant peace 
was the lot of very few of New Jersey's early Gover- 
nors. Governor Andros, of New York, disputed Car- 
teret's authority ; nay, failing by peaceable means to 
gain his point, he sent a party of soldiers by night, who 
dragged Carteret from his bed, carried him to New 
York, and there kept him close until a day was set on 
which he was tried before his opponent himself in the 
New York Courts, and three times acquitted by the 
jury, who were sent back with directions to convict, 
but firmly each time refused. 

The authority of Carteret was confirmed by the Duke 
of York, and Andros was recalled. But Jersey was 
then an insignificant place indeed. For Governor John 
Winthrop, of Connecticut, writing July i8, 1665, speaks 
of it thus: "New Jersey, which is a place I know not, 
nor ever have heard where it is." 

Woodbridge, in 1667, and Newark, in 1666, were 
settled from New England on the invitation of Gov- 
ernor Carteret, and in consequence of the favorable 
terms which he held out. The settlers were to extin- 
guish the Indian title for themselves, and, that being 
done, a nominal quit rent only was demanded. Thus 
more strong blood was transplanted to New Jersey. It 



had Holland blood some years before in Bergen and 
in Somerset. It acquired Puritan in 1666, and Hugue- 
nots came with the Dutch. Some years afterwards 
came the Scotcli, who first settled Amboy, called it 
Perth after their most distinguished companion, and 
made it the home of Johnstons, Gordons, Skinners, 
properly McGregors, Alexanders, Hamiltons, Barclays, 
Fullertons, Scotts, Rutherfurds and other Scottish folk. 
This infusion had much to do with the shaping of the 
colony. The decided and conservative character of 
East New Jersey, the enterprise of Newark, the sturdy 
industry of our agricultural counties, the independence 
of all — in short, the individuality of the State, more 
striking perhaps than that of any other, is the plain out- 
growth of the fusion of their dirfcrent but excellent 
nationalities. There is no frivolity in the character of 
any of these compounds, and the absence of excitabilit}-, 
of gregarious following of leaders or adoption of ideas, 
is a marked attribute to-day of the native Jerseyman. 

The council of Governor Carteret were persons not 
much known to fame, then or ever. The leading man 
among them was a Frenchman named Robert Vau- 
quellen, first Surveyor-General of the Province, who, 
with his wife, accompanied the Governor in his passage 
across the sea. The trustees of Sir George Carteret 
could not make sale of East Jersey. After ineffectual 
attempts at private sale they offered it at public auction, 
and William Penn and eleven associates, most if not all 
Quakers, bought it for ;i^3,400. It was too heavy a 
purchase, apparently, for their management. Each sold 
half his right to another, and so were constituted the 
twenty-four Proprietors. They procured a deed of 
confirmation from the Duke of York March 14th, 1682, 



19 

and then the twenty-four Lords Proprietors by sealed 
instrument established a council, gave them power to 
appoint overseers, and displace all officers necessary to 
manage their property, to take care of their lands, 
deed them, appoint dividends, settle the rights of par- 
ticular Proprietors in such dividends, grant warrants of 
survey, in fine, to do everything necessary for the 
profitable disposition of all the territory. The council 
was always to represent one-third of the general Pro- 
prietors. 

The new Proprietors were men of rank. William 
Penn is knoAvn to all the world. With him were James, 
Earl of Perth, John Drummond, Robert Barclay, 
famous, like Penn, as a Quaker gentleman, and a con- 
troversialist for Quaker belief ; David Barclay, Robert 
Gordon, Arent Sonmans, Robert West, Thomas Rud- 
yard, a lawyer who had won fame in London as de- 
fender of William Penn ; Samuel Groom, Thomas Hart, 
Richard Mew, Ambrose Rigg, John Heywood, Hugh 
Hartshorn, progenitor of the distinguished landowners 
as stated near Sandy Hook ; Clement Plumsted, Thomas 
Cooper, Gawen Lawrie, Edward Byllinge, James Brain, 
William Gibson, Thomas Barker, Robert Turner and 
Thomas Warne. 

Robert Barclay was appointed Governor for life, but 
with liberty to act by deputy, and Thomas Rudyard 
was selected for this office. He came here in 1683, 
and his council were Lewis Morris, of Barbadoes, a 
large iron man in Monmouth, John Barr and William 
Sanford, with others less known to fame. 

Gawen Lawrie succeeded Rudyard in a very short 
time after the latter's appointment, and under him a 
considerable Scotch emigration took place. Under him, 



too, Perth Amboy was laid out, a favorite object with 
the early Proprietors. Lawrie held his office but a little 
while, and to him succeeded Lord Neill Campbell, a 
brother of the Duke of Arg3le, implicated with him in 
treasonable invasion of Scotland in 1685. He retained 
Gawen Lawrie as one of his council. He remained, 
however, scarcely a year, appointing Andrew Hamilton 
as his substitute. Troubles sprung up during his ad- 
ministration, with New York, to settle which Hamilton 
set out for England, but on his passage was captured 
by the French and for some time detained. 

Governorships were short in the New Province. 
Hamilton, reappointed in 1692 — and to whose care as 
Governor, West Jersey was also confided — who was 
likewise, during the same period, Postmaster-General of 
America, held office no longer than 1697, England hav- 
ing passed an act requiring that proprietar}- Governors 
should be approved by the King, and that no other than 
a native of England should hold an office of trust or 
profit. The Proprietors unwillinglv ]jarted with him. 
Jeremiah Basse succeeded him, but troubles recurring, 
Hamilton came back in 1699, and retained the office till 
his death in 1703. 

In 1702 occurred the surrender to Oueen Anne of the 
right of government, an event having an unintended but 
most important effect on the extent of the proprietary 
domain ; an effect, however, not announced, if discovered, 
till many years had intervened. Lord Cornbury then 
came, first Governor under the Crown. This event 
diminished greatly the consequence of the Board. Its 
nominee no longer gave or communicated, or was re- 
quired to approve, the laws of the province. It became 
what it ought to have been from the beginning, merely 



an association of landowners. But men of great emi- 
nence and force still managed the body. Singularly 
enough, as it seems to me, it was never formally incor- 
porated. I suppose that it may, nevertheless, be a 
corporation. While there existed much land undis- 
posed of, the active directors of the association were 
men who made their mark. Such were Lewis Morris, 
John Burnet, Richard Ashfield, James Alexander, John 
Johnston, John Parker, John Hamilton, Lewis Johnston, 
Andrew Johnston, Joseph Murray, Samuel Nevill, Rob- 
ert Hunter Morris, Elisha Parker, John Stevens, Walter 
Rutherfurd, Cortlandt Skinner, William Skinner, Wil- 
liam Burnet, David Ogden, acting for the sons of 
William Penn, Oliver De Lancy, Henry Cuyler, Jr., 
and William Alexander, Lord Sterling. I give the 
prominent nanies from 1735 to 1764. 

It would be gratifying could we do more than recall 
the names of these worthies, could cry to the dry bones 
of the slain and make them live again. But the task is 
not within the compass of our time. Let me, however, 
call up from the past, as well as the scant materials en- 
able us, the forms of some of the most notable among 
those I have named. 

And first of all I mention, because of his absorbing 
interest in proprietary rights, the distinguished James 
Alexander. The minutes of the Council of Proprietors 
from 1725 to 1756 are a monument of the devotion, zeal, 
intelligence and unremitting and absorbing care of this 
gentleman for the interests of this Association. How 
much earlier he bestowed this attention I am not able 
from the material furnished me to say. But during this 
period it might be said of him that he well-nigh em- 
bodied the Board. If he did not with his own hand pen 



the minutes, they must have received his particular and 
most scrupulous supervision. They recount his history 
and the employment of his time. They refer to incidents 
now historical and most valuable to the general public. 
They ought to be sought for by the State and published 
in the collections of her archives now in course of 
annual issue. 

We form our ideas of the character of Washington by 
studying not only his public and private correspon- 
dence, but his minute and exact and just accounts. We 
think him a greater Washington because we find him 
making record of the most unimportant particulars with 
his own hand. We increase our good opinion of him 
by noticing the neatness, precision and clearness of his 
handwriting, and an}' one who will peruse these minutes, 
tiresome as he may find the task, will rise from it with 
a conviction that James Alexander was a man of highest 
value, and inestimably useful to the Proprietors, and 
through them to all who under them own the land 
composing East New Jersey. 

It was not the fashion in those days, as it is perhaps 
too much so now, to make the death of an associate the 
occasion for eulogistic corporate action. I am not sure 
that this huge book of minutes contains any passed in 
relation to any other of the very distinguished gentle- 
men who, during that period, deceased. But when he 
died, in 1756, a letter of condc^lencc to Mrs Alexander, 
reported by a committee composed of Robert Morris, 
Richard Ashfield, Richard Peters and Cortlandt Skinner, 
was addressed to the widow of their old associate in the 
following words : 

Madam : The Council of Proprietors of East New Jersey take this 
opportunity of their first meeting since the death of Mr. Alexander to 



23 

make you and your family their sincere and cordial condolence on this 
mournful and unexpected event. When alive they esteemed him, they 
trusted him, they loved him. They have reason, therefore, now that 
he is taken from them, to bear part in your grief, having lost their 
counsellor, their friend and their unwearied assistant. 

The Council, sensible of the manifold obligations his friendship and 
services have laid them under, think it their duty to assure the family 
that we shall never fail to give them all the assistance in our power for 
completing their titles or the recovering their rights to any land of his 
in this division, or to do anything else which you shall be advised we 
can do for your benefit. 

At the same meeting his son, Wilham Alexander, 
Lord SterHng, was made Surveyor-General in his 
father's room, who had held the office so long that pre- 
cedents for a commission were directed to be sought 
for. He became such m 1716, forty years before his 
death. 

James Alexander was a Scotchman. He was out in 
the rebellion of 171 5, in which his friend and sometime 
associate, the afterward Rev. William Skinner, of Perth 
Amboy, believed on best authority to have really been 
a leader of the clan MacGregor, participated. He took 
refuge here the next year. He was a proficient in 
mathematics, and distinguished as an engineer. 

Notwithstanding that he was a political refugee, he 
enjoyed the friendship and patronage of the great Duke 
of Argyle, immortalized by Scott m the " Heart of 
Midlothian," and through him had the good will of the 
representatives here of the house of Brunswick. Soon 
after arriving in New York he received an official ap- 
pointment and won distinction in it. ■ He soon obtained 
the post of Surveyor-General both in New York and 
New Jersey, and in 1720 Governor Burnet, another 
Scotchman, made him a member of his council. While 



24 

thus employed Mr. Alexander studied law, and when 
called to the bar became rapidly eminent, not as a 
speaker, his eulogists grant that, but for profound legal 
knowledge, sagacity and penetration. He enjoyed the 
good fortune, however, rare lor any lawyer, of identi- 
fying his name with an historical cause, the trial of 
John Peter Zenger, printer of the New York W^cck/y 
Journal, for libel. 

These colonial tim.es were now and then quite stirring. 
Whether it was because most of the inhabitants of the 
Provinces had been engaged in political or religious 
disturbance at home, or because when they came here 
the air was prophetic and inspired a love for liberty, 
and a tendency to resist power, the history of almost 
every Governor was one of contest with the people. 
These were, it is true, very few, and so the fact is more 
remarkable But whether or not it illustrated a familiar 
vulgarism, certainly there was much tempest in every 
Province. 

The Governor of New York in 1732 adopted certain 
unwarrantable proceedings, yet had his legislative bodies 
with hmi. But the courts ot law refused to obey his 
mandate. Thereupon he displaced Chief-Justice Morris 
and appointed in his stead James DeLancey. Then the 
people established the Weekly Jotirttnl, which took their 
side with that energy in which newspapers seldom fail, 
and one of its articles, which to-day would be regarded 
as rather harmless, was singled out for prosecution by 
information ; the Grand Jury refused to indict, and the 
trial came on before the new Chief-Justice. 

James Alexander and William Smith, another dis- 
tinguished lawyer who had come over in the same ship 
with Alexander, volunteered in Zenger, the editor's 



25 

defence. Aware, evidently, of the stringent law then 
existing, expressed in the maxim, " The greater the 
truth, the greater the libel," these gentlemen challenged 
the Court. They objected that their commissions were 
during the Governor's will and pleasure, and not during 
good behavior, as the}" should be, and took other 
points somewhat technical in their character. When 
they presented their exceptions the Chief-Justice warned 
them that it was contempt. They persevered, and 
asked next day to be heard. " We will neither hear 
you nor allow the exceptions," said the Chief-Justice ; 
" we must leave the Bench or you the Bar," and so he 
struck them from the list of attorneys. An old hero of 
the Philadelphia Bar, then, it is said, eighty years old, 
was brought thence to take the place of the disbarred 
victims of judicial tyranny. The trial of Zenger took 
place before a jury in 1735. It is a State trial of great 
celebrity, carefully reported, and probably printed by 
himself. It is to be found in Howell's Collections of 
State Trials, and its result is regarded not only as a 
forensic achievement of almost unequalled magnitude, 
but as " the germ of American Freedom, the Morning 
Star of that liberty which subsequently revolutionized 
xVmerica." Zenger, simply asserting that what he said 
was true, and that he had a right, therefore, to say it, 
was not only acquitted but canonized. And the mag- 
nificent old man, who at eighty years of age displayed 
the fire, the energy, and the impassioned eloquence of 
thirty-five, became the hero of the day. A magnificent 
banquet welcomed him from the court room. He was 
attended thither by an huzzaing multitude. He en- 
tered his barge to go home next day with the salute of 
cannon. The Common Council of New York presented 



26 

him the freedom of the citv, and the gold box, enclosing 
it with the city arms engraved, commemorated his 
success and his merit. 

Thus was old age enabled to win the crown of glory 
of a life time — as if to bid all men perceive that so long 
as one has life and health his exertions belong to his 
fellow creatures. Though Mr. Alexander could not in 
propria persona participate in the defence of Zenger, 
yet, martyrs as they were in his cause, it is impossible 
that they did not, behind the scenes, share the labors of 
his counsel, and equally so that they did not enjoy a 
large part of the popular favor which was most ostenta- 
tiously bestowed where it was safest to give it. 

While this cause was going on in New York, Mr. 
Alexander, interested as a large Proprietor, as Surveyor- 
General in New Jersey, and as general counsel and 
factotum of the Council of Pro})rictors here, was en- 
gaged in looking after the popular difficulties in New 
Jersey which terminated in the celebrated law suit in 
our Chancery between the Proprietors as complainants, 
and what were called by them the Clinker Lot Right 
men, which suit was begun by the filing of what is 
popularly known as the Elizabethtown bill in Chancery. 

Alexander here was not on the popular side. Though 
the population of East New Jersey, at that time, could 
scarcely have been twenty thousand, yet the feeling 
seems to have been intense. Trespasses, ejectments, 
riots, gaol breakings were the order of the day, and for 
ten years, law suits, their progress and their issue, were 
the chief employments of the hall yearly councils. 
Eminent counsel from New York assisted. But the 
burden of the conflict, with all its tremendous detail, 
fell upon Mr. Alcx:indcr, aided, perhaps, at the very 



27 

last, by Elisha Parker, of Amboy, then or soon after- 
wards, his son-in-law, who was Solicitor of Record, but 
died soon after the filing of the bill. 

It would be difficult, indeed, to tell the story of this 
cause, considering that the bill, the statement of the 
case for the Proprietors, fills eighty double-columned 
printed pages, each about eighteen inches long, and the 
exhibits and appendices nearly ninety more, much of 
them in finer print and containing many more words. 
This bill is the foundation of the history of East New 
Jersey, from the beginning up to its filing, April 13, 
1745. Its object was to establish the title of the Propri- 
etors against any other title up to that time alleged 
against it, to enforce it against recusant parties, to 
dissolve and enjoin an alleged conspiracy among the 
defendants hostile to it, and to enjoin all waste and the 
prosecution of certain ejectments affecting it. 

The jurisdiction of the Court of Chancery on this bill 
has, I believe, been long somewhat questioned. But its 
object was somehow finally attained. The title denied 
to the Proprietors and asserted in this bill founded on 
the grants of Charles the Second to the Duke of York, 
of the Duke of York to Berkeley and Carteret, and 
thence to the twenty-four Proprietors and their assigns, 
has not seriously, for over one hundred years, been 
disputed in New Jersey. 

It has, indeed, been held that adverse possession may 
be set up even against the Proprietors, and under this 
doctrine, in some cases, the proprietary title has failed. 
But the title itself has never during that period been 
impugned. 

The learning, labor, ingenuity, fertility of resources, 
competency to deal with detail, and general legal ability 



28 

displayed in originating and carrying on this suit, entitle 
Mr. Alexander to very high rank as a lawyer. No one 
can doubt it who takes the trouble to study this bill, 
especially if he will also read the minutes of the Board 
during the ten or fifteen years of the gestation, birth 
and maintenance of this suit. 

The establishment of the northern boundary between 
New York and New Jersey was another subject which 
engrossed the industrious and painstaking mind of Mr. 
Alexander, but without being finished during his life. 

The fatal illness of Mr. Alexander arose from journey- 
ing to Albany when already ill, to oppose a ministerial 
scheme oppressive to the people. He was not only 
distinguished as a statesman and a lawyer, but also as a 
man of science. He is reputed the principal author of 
the memorable report on the Indian policy of Governor 
Burnet, and with Dr. Franklin, Francis Hopkinson and 
others foimded the American Philosophical Society. 
He was a constant correspondent with Halley, the 
astronomer, and other learned men of science. About 
1726 he married a w'ealthy widow, a Mrs. Provoost. 
He left one son, William, Lord Sterling, a Major- 
General in the Revolution, ancestor through one of his 
two daughters of the eminent John Ducr, William A. 
Duer and their descendants ; and four daughters, one of 
whom married Peter Van Brugh Livingston, and was 
ancestress of the family ot Keans ; Elizabeth, who 
married John Stevens, ancestress thus of all the 
scions of that noted Jersey family ; Catharine, who first 
married Elisha l^arker, and on his death, without issue, 
Walter Rutherfurd, mother thus of that equally dis- 
tinguished race — and Susanna, who married John Reid. 

Some correspondence appended to the life of William 



29 

Livingston shows that just before he died, Alexander, 
Cadawallader Golden, Mr. Livingston and Benjamin 
Franklin were busy planning a scheme for uniting all 
the colonies under one government, subordinate to the 
Crown, a scheme not unlike that now existing in the 
Dominion of Canada. Had it succeeded, what might 
have been the present condition of this hemisphere ? 

The length to which I have insensibly carried this 
notice of James Alexander precludes my bestowing 
equal attention on his very able associates in Proprietor- 
ship. And yet I cannot wholly omit them. Of some 
I must not speak, since I have derived from them 
my own lineage. But no one ought to pass the names 
of those whom I shall mention. There was Lewis 
Morris, Governor to succeed John Hamilton, himself a 
familiar face at the Board, appointed in 1738; he was 
President of the Council over ten years, ending in 1735, 
the year of the Zenger trial. He was in public life from 
1704, when, at the age of thirty -three, he was one of 
Lord Cornbur3''s Council. That nobleman was not 
popular. His rather handsome face and bland manners 
attracted at first, but his demand for two thousand 
pounds salary for twenty years shocked the then not 
over rich people of New York and New Jersey. '' Then 
thee must be very needy,'' said Quaker Samuel Jennings, 
when this demand was made. Lewis Morris had spent 
some time in England and had been a warm advocate 
for the surrender of government by the Proprietors to 
the Crown, which occurred in 1702. The Lords of 
Trade named him, then scarce thirty years old, for Gov- 
ernor of New Jersey, but determined on uniting the two 
Provinces, New Jersey and New York, under Cornbury. 

Lewis Morris was a dashing and eccentric young 



man. His father, Richard Morris, activ^e under Crom- 
well, found a refuge in New York at the Restora- 
tion. He obtained a grant in 1661 for three thousand 
acres on the Harlem river, where he built, calling it 
Morrissania. He died, leaving his son a babe. Colonel 
Lewis Morris, of Barbadoes, came to New York and 
became guardian of his nephew. He bought four thou- 
sand acres in Monmouth, located iron mills, and created 
a great estate. This he gave his nephew, the future 
Governor, who, with what he inherited, was rich. He 
had been a wild, mischievous, prankish boy^ — had even 
rim away from school to Jamaica. But at twenty he 
returned, fell in love with a beautiful girl, and married 
her. Next, no one knowing where, he studied law, and 
and he appeared as a Judge in New Jersey, probably of 
Common Pleas. Governor Hamilton made him one of 
his council. He was a man of keen insight into char- 
acter, original, a strong, direct thinker, a blunt, senten- 
tious speaker. He did not like Lord Cornbury — 
opposed him almost disrespectfully, and thus lost office. 
But in 171 5 Governor Himter made him Chief-Justice 
of New York. This post he retained under Governor 
Burnet, another of those who sat at the Proprietary 
Board, but Cosby, who succeeded Burnet, and he did not 
agree. He was, therefore, removed, and DeLancey, the 
Judge who tried Zenger, took his place. Cosby's general 
administration was so obnoxious that, at the request of 
many, Morris went to England to remonstrate against his 
retention. But while he was there, annoyed with delays 
and the " insolence of office," Cosby died, and he was ap- 
pointed Governor of New Jersey. This was in 1738. He 
died in ofifice, 1746. His was a stormy life, indeed, the 
storms apparently much occasioned by his own self- 



31 

asserting disposition. But society in New York and East 
New Jersey was at that time in a state of ferment. 

A traveller passing through New York during this 
period gives an odd account of how he was treated. 
He dined with some of the courtiers. " Fine times for 
a Dutch mob to judge of progressiveness," said one. 
"■ These Dutchmen will fancy by and by that they are 
in Holland and treat us like a parcel of Burgomasters," 
said another; and so the talk went on. He tried 2;oinof 
among "no party " men, but found these were courtiers 
too. He went to a club of both party men, and thought 
they would have eaten each other up. He got among 
them and found they thought the courtiers the common 
enemies of mankind. He sought the Prudents and 
found them bores. He took refuge with the ladies 
only to find them the most zealous of politicians. They 
were "courtiers and no party women, both party women 
and Prudents, all as warm as scalloped oysters in dis- 
cussion, though he admits they were exceptionally good 
natured." Robert Hunter Morris, son of Colonel Lewis 
Morris, his companion in his last visit to England, 
Chief-Justice of New Jersey till his death in 1764, is 
another of those whose strong, bold signature enriched 
the volume of proprietary minutes. A strange death 
for a Chief-Justice, — he fell dead in a dance, not a Ger- 
man either, but apparently a Virginia reel. 

William Burnet, son of Bishop Burnet, like Alex- 
ander and several others, was a Scotchman, a man of 
noble character and presence. " A man," said Alex- 
ander of him, " who, bating warmth, was always without 
a fault, and that by degrees he became nearer and 
nearer master of, and in time, had he lived, would 
probably have been entirely so." His coming to New 



32 

York in 1720 was an event of great interest. Flags, 
cannon, parades, balconies loaded with fair forms, in- 
augurated him into office. " He was," says the indus- 
trious and most satisfactory historian, Mrs. Lamb, " a 
free and easy widower, large, graceful, of stately 
presence, dignified on occasions, but usually gay, talka- 
tive and condescending. He was reputed handsome, 
and greatly admired by the ladies, to whom he was 
especially devoted." A gentleman wrote : " We do 
not know yet how the fathers and husbands are going 
to like Governor Burnet, but we are quite sure the 
wives and daughters do so sufficiently." Carefully 
educated by his learned father, accustomed to highly 
cultivated society, a travelled man, when to travel was 
rare, full of humor and anecdote, genial and even 
familiar, he was rapidly and continuously popular. Nor 
was this only with Europeans ; he won the hearts of 
the Indians, and took great interest in endeavoring to 
civilize and improve them. 

On the death of George I., Governor Burnet was 
translated to Massachusetts and New Hampshire. But 
he died soon after going thither. Governor Burnet 
had his country seat in Perth Amboy, the same which 
had belonged to his predecessor and friend, Governor 
Hunter. It was situated on a knoll just south of St. 
Peter's Church, one of the loveliest points, certainly, of 
that most lovely locality. 

It were hard to leave this list of worthies without 
dwelling upon the Johnstons. 

Dr. John Johnston, one of the most valued citizens of 
the Province, a man of learning and skill, whose death — 
it was published — was to the inexpressible loss of the 
poor, who were always liis most particular care, was 



33 

the first of these. His son Andrew, once President ol 
the Board, who died in 1762, was, according to histor}^, 
" a man of great equahty of temper, circumspection of 
conduct, and open, yet grave, engaging mien, much 
goodness of heart, and many virtues, both pubHc and 
private." Dr. Lewis Johnston was another- member, 
and son of the first named. 

Equally hard is it to omit the mention of others who 
distinguished themselves and progenitors of distin- 
guished men ; such as Michael Keani}', whose blood 
was in the veins of two of the nation's heroes Law- 
rence Kearn}-, of the Navy and Phillip Kearny, of the 
Army ; and Thomas Gordon, from whom came several 
of his own name famous in historv ; and also the honored 
famil)- of Hamersley. 

I mention but one more of the ante-Revolutionary 
worthies, Samuel Nevill. He was the eldest brother of 
the wife of Peter Sonmans, a well-known early settler of 
New Jerse}'. On her death in 1735-6, he left London, 
where he was practicing at the Bar, and likewise edit- 
ing the Morning Post, and came to Perth Amboy, where 
he settled, and was distinguished, rising to the Bench of 
the Supreme Court through membership of the As- 
sembly and various other minor offices. He is known 
to the profession as the publisher of Nevill's laws, and 
was known to others as editor of a magazine published 
at Woodbridge b}^ James Parker, the printer, the first 
periodical in New Jersey, the second upon the conti- 
nent. He Avas Mr. Alexander's right hand man in all 
the litigation as to proprietary title. He died in 1764. 

The Revolution of 1776 swept away the greatness of 
Perth Amboy and the grandees of the Council of Pro- 
prietors. The little city was for awhile under the guns 
3 



34 

of the British, and was then occupied by them. Several 
of the principal citizens and Proprietors took farms and 
lived in Hunterdon. Such was the case with John 
Stevens and James Parker, residents of Amboy, and 
with John Rutherfurd, and I believe with others. When 
the war ended the glory of Amboy was gone. Its 
greatness had departed, and the Council of Proprietors 
no longer assembled so many distinguished persons. 
Yet some remained. There was William Alexander, 
Lord Sterling, of whom we have spoken, who was ap- 
pointed Surveyor-General in 1761. There was John 
Rutherfurd, selected for the same office in 1771. And 
Andrew Bell came back, and in 1804 was made Sur- 
ve3^or-Gencral, holding the office thirty-eight years, and 
till his death in 1842. James Parker came from Hun- 
terdon, and his son succeeded him at his death in 1796, 
and filled the office of Register for many years. There 
were others of note, among them a shrewd, canny 
inhabitant of Sussex, Joseph Sharp, and a natty, com- 
fortable gentleman from Monmouth, Robert Mont- 
gomery, upon the whiu of whose pipe I have often 
looked when a diminutive small boy. The most distin- 
guished of these Proprietors since the Revolution were 
John Rutherfurd and Andrew Bell. In speaking of 
them I rely upon memory as well as publications. I 
remember them both well. John Rutherfurd, son of 
Walter and of Catharine, widow of Elisha Parker, ncc 
Alexander, was a tall, gaunt person, very distinguished 
in his appearance, rather pale in countenance, sedate 
and grave in expression, yet full of intelligence and fire. 
At this time he was of very advanced years. He was 
born in 1760, graduated from Princeton College in 1775, 
married Helen, daughter of Lewis Morris, a signer of 



35 

the Declaration of Independence, a grandson of the 
Governor Lewis Morris already mentioned, was Senator 
of the United States from 1791 to 1793, and filled other 
important puplic positions. He died in 1840. He 
lived in a large mansion on the banks of the Passaic two 
miles north of Belleville, where he had a large estate. 
I suppose he was the largest landowner ever in New 
Jersey. 

Who that ever knew him can fail to remember An- 
drew Bell — " Uncle Bell " as he was called by so many 
that had no right to the appellation of his nephews or 
nieces, that finally it came to pass that pretty much 
evervbody adopted the endearing phrase. A fine old 
English gentleman he was — " one of the olden time " — 
though one must admit that, vexed as he was throughout 
his life with painful gout, and never, so far as known, 
having had the hardihood to own or use hunters, all of 
the grand old song can scarcely be used in application 
to him. Yet much of it can, nevertheless : 

" He kept his fine old mansion at a bountiful old rate, 
With a good old porter to relieve the old poor at his gate." 

He was an embodiment of kindness, hospitality and 
good will ; a scholar, a charitable, excellent old man, 
understanding fully the duty of minding his own busi- 
ness and letting other people's alone. He lived with his 
charming old wife and a maiden sister until their united 
ages exceeded 250 years — convincing proofs of the un- 
healthiness of Perth Amboy. His early life was one of 
excitement, in strong contrast to his later days. He 
studied law in the office of Cortlandt Skinner, Attorney- 
General of the Province, a Whig and a leader of Whigs, 
till the question of armed rebellion took place, when he 



36 

took sides with the Government to which he liad sworn 
allegiance, and raised and commanded a brigade through 
the Revolutionary struggle. With young Bell, in the 
same oflfice, studied Joseph Bloomfield, afterwards 
Governor of New Jersey. The lads parted ; Bell joined 
the British ; was for awhile Private Secretary of Sir 
Henry Clinton, then Commissary in the army. He 
was at the battle of Monmouth and there encountered 
in arms on the other side two Paterson brothers; one, I 
believe, the distinguished William Paterson, his brother- 
in-law. But it was difficult to believe, when one knew 
him, that such as he had ever been in battle. In 1804 
he became Surveyor-General of East Jersey, and died 
in office, 1842, in the eighty-sixth vear of his age. A 
stout, middle-sized man, with an exceedingly florid com- 
plexion and the whitest of hair, wearing alwavs his 
gold-headed cane, and zealously attending the ancient 
Episcopal Church of St. Peter's, of which he was for 
thirty-three years a Warden, gathering up its contribu- 
tions every Sunday. No one, I think, who ever saw 
him can forget the face and form of Andrew Bell. 

\\'ith him I conclude my efforts to put before you the 
Lord Proprietors, as they were called first, in an 
adoption of feudal language ; later, with more or less 
derision of the past. And yet I am tempted to give the 
roll of Surveyors-General since Mr. Bell : beginning 
with his nephew, Stephen Van Rennselaer Paterson, 
twin brother of Judge William Paterson, and com- 
prising the very capable Francis W. Brinlev, re- 
nowned as one of the best surveyors the State ever 
produced; in office from 1845 to 1859; his son, Edward 
Brinley, John Rutherfurd, the second, Munro Howell, 
and the present distinguished occupant of the post. Prof. 



37 

George H. Cook. My audience will recognize these 
names as worthy of high honor ; — all but the last are 
gone. 



My task is incomplete, tedious as I fear it has been, 
without an effort to present to mental vision the manner 
of life of the people, representatives of whom I have 
tried to acquaint you with. 

The title of the Governor in those days was some- 
thing alarming. The bill in Chancery already mentioned 
was addressed to " His Excellency, Lewis Morris, Esq., 
Captain-General and Governor-in-Chief of the Province 
of New Jersey and territories thereon depending in 
America, and Vice-Admiral in the same." 

In 1682 a liberal computation made the inhabitants of 
all East Jersey three thousand five hundred. A still 
more liberal estimate makes the number in 1693 ten 
thousand. 

In 1700 Governor Hamilton thought the males over 
sixteen in both East and West Jersey not more than 
two thousand — justifying the estimate of population as 
scarcely more than seven years previous. A census 
taken in 1725 gave the population of both Provinces as 
32,442 ; Monmouth being the most populous county, 
Essex the second, Burlington the third, Middlesex the 
fourth. 

Another census taken in 1737 gives the population of 
East Jersey as 23,395 ; fifty-three years after, in 
1790, it was 111,272. There could not have been in 
1776 more than 50,000 people in all East Jersey. In 1745 
about half that number. 

Such a computation gives us no very grand idea of 



38 

the importance of the lives of the really and evidently 
eminent men whose names and characters have been 
brought before you. 

And yet luxury and display most unreasonable was 
early the order of the day. " The style of dress," says 
Mrs. Lamb, " was very showy and conspicuous. Gay 
pendants were worn in the ears, costly crosses were 
suspended about the neck, and diamonds and rich 
brocades were esteemed essential to respectability 
among the wealthier families ; tight lacing and wide 
skirts prevailed, though not as extensively as a few 
years later. The hair was frizzled and curled, and ar- 
ranged in a great variety of fantastic ways." The 
gentlemen outdid the ladies; they concealed their hair 
altogether by enormous wigs, which were supposed to 
greatly beautify the countenance. An advertisement in 
the New York Gazette, of 1733, throws a glimmer of 
light upon the prevailing fashion : " Morrison, Peruke 
maker from London, dresses gentleman's and ladies' 
hair in the politest taste. He has a choice parcel of 
human, horse and goat hair to dispose of." And another : 
"Tyes, bobs, majors, spencers, fox-tails and twists, 
together with curls or tales for the ladies." Bright 
colors everywhere prevailed. The most gorgeous com- 
binations appeared in the fabrics for a lady's wardrobe, 
and gentlemen wore coats and other garments that 
came in all the hues of the rainbow. Large silver but- 
tons adorned coats and vests, often with the initial of 
the wearer's name engraved upon each button. Occa- 
sionally an entire suit would be decorated with conch 
shell buttons, silver mounted. Even coaches were 
painted and gilded in an extraordinary manner. A 
writer of the day, seeing the equipage of Lewis Morris 



39 

rolling down Boadway towards the fort, speaks of its 
silver mountmgs glittering in the sunshine, and of the 
family arms emblazoned upon it in many places. The 
crest was a spacious stone castle with little turrets and 
battlements, the motto being "tandem vincitur," which 
was supposed to declare the virtue, perseverance, mag- 
nanimity and success of the Morris family against 
oppression of whatever character. Even servants aped 
their masters in style. We quote an advertisement : 
" Ran away — a negro servant clothed with damask 
breeches, black broadcloth vest, a broadcloth coat of 
copper color, lined and trimmed with black, and black 
stockings." " Ran away, a negro barber; wore a light 
wig, a gray kersey jacket lined with blue, a light pair 
of drugget breeches with glass buttons, black roll-up 
stockings, square toed^shoes, a white vest with yellow 
buttons and linings." These in 1731 and 1734. 

Architecture had scarcely, perhaps, attained in this 
country all that the era of Queen Anne exhibited in 
London. That is reserved, it seems, for our own days. 
But wherever the money came from (the most lucrative 
business was the slave trade) fashion and folly made 
most extravagant use of it as w^ll in the humbler 
Province of New Jersey as in the ambitious city of New 
York. Those who would have a minute conception of 
the men and women of that day, need subtract little 
from those of England at the same period. The pol- 
ished periods of Macaulay, Thackera}^ and the late 
history of The Four Georges, by Justin McCarthy, 
will enable all to see as in a mirror the Lords Proprie- 
tors of 1684 to 1764, their families and their mode 
of life. 



4° 

I was lately on the water stretching between Paiilus 
Hook and New Amsterdam, when a marvellous sight 
invited my admiring gaze. Up the stream, and passing 
in front of me came a ship, a mammoth of the deep, her 
deck containing in square feet half an acre ; her hull en- 
closing some five thousand tens of measurement, silent, 
majestic, swift, cleaving the pure water which seemed 
to cling delighted to her sides ; without a sail, moving 
against the wind, standing up like a huge house, her 
gunwale twenty feet above the waves, while her keel 
sank in them an equal depth ; the flag of England at her 
peak, and a banner with stripes and stars from her naked 
topmast ; her deck, from stem to stern, covered with 
men and women gazing curiously, half-astonished, half- 
delighted, on the scene around, while all about and 
around her moved crowds of craft, each peculiar and 
individual ; some small snorting vessels, shooting hither 
and thither, now with great barges towed behind, now 
with huge ships, their bows turned seaward, some 
tortoise-shaped with windows innumerable on each side, 
speeding across the current, some almost as large as the 
great monster just arrived ; hastening every way, while 
lazy ships lay anchored, ugly guns grinning through 
their port-holes, or with shrouds and rigging filled with 
fluttering garments hung to dry, and little boats with 
sail or oar flitted here and there — in a word, with all the 
variety, bustle and life of the harbor of that city, already 
great, almost beyond compare, in no great time to be 
the acknowledged commercial capital of the universe. 
The mammoth whence? From Great Britain, a week 
since, obedient to the i)anting engine and propelled by 
th« silent screw. And still more wonderful, her depar- 
ture, learned through lightning under the sea, while the 



41 

news of her arrival by the same swift messenger was 
already in London, friend congratulating- friend through 
a mysterious clicking managed by a boy. The sight 
was not uncommon. Nay, it was so much the contrary 
that only here and there among the throngs who blocked 
each other's way upon the shore on either side did 
scarce one care to waste a thought on so ordinary an 
occurrence. And the crowds upon the monster's deck 
were soon jostling each other on their way ashore, seek- 
ing the strange iron rail and the smoking, tireless iron 
horse, to speed them thence to their destinations 
throughout the country, thousands of miles, some of 
them, away, where natural and artificial wonders were 
the daily enjoyment or sustenation of millions upon 
millions of industrious, happy people. 



Two centuries ago one of your forefathers or mine 
stood upon the shore gazing excited over the same 
expanse upon a ship which was making its way into the 
port of Perthtown, then surveyed and mapped out, in- 
deed, but a hamlet with " ten or twelve houses thirty 
feet long, sixteen or eighteen wide, ten feet betwixt 
joint and joint with a double chimney made with timber 
and clay," as the manner of the countr)^ was to build. 
Forests lined each shore, and from the headlands peered 
forth here a corfee-colored face, there one of European 
origin, by no means joyful, yet curious at the unusual 
sight. Such an one, indeed, had never before saluted 
vision there. Here was a ship of three hundred and 
fifty tons, loaded with weary, hungry, sick, destitute, and 
many enslaved human beings, the remnant of a company 



42 

which set sail months before and nearly half of whom, 
seventy out of 200, from pestilence, starvation, storms 
and cruelty, had succumbed to misery and found a watery 
grave. Of the two hundred, one hundred and thirty 
were taken from prisons, where they were held for dis- 
obedience to laws interdicting religious liberty, and ac- 
cepted banishment with more or less willingness, to 
escape greater misery at home. With what sad eyes did 
they gaze upon a land onl}^ welcome as an exchange for a 
prison, and where to pay the cost of their journey they 
were to be slaves for a term of years ! With these were 
others who sought the wilderness with hope and to ac- 
quire freedom ; but such were few among the many. 
This was the ship's company — the freight of the Henry 
and Francis, the first emigration induced by the Lords 
Proprietors, the earhest settlers direct from the parent 
countr}', of the Province of East New Jersey. And 
now while the then hamlet, whose attractions were the 
theme of Scot, of Pitlochie, is still far behind in the race 
of cities, her beautiful shore looking out to sea, over her 
magificent bay, still unappreciated by the capital and 
taste of the century, her many natural advantages passed 
strangely by, while other less favored spots are greedily 
appropriated ; yet around and about her is a population 
of millions, happier, or at least, having the right to be 
happier, than all the world beside ; the descendants of 
the miserable wanderers of 1685, scattered everywhere, 
most of them utterly ignorant of their origin, contribu- 
ting to the strength and felicity of this broad land, whose 
freedom excels all other freedom because it is the 
freedom of God's truth. 



43 

Vainly do we guess, as we look back these two hun- 
dred years, what a change a like period hereafter may 
produce. Profitless indeed is the thought. Yet, medi- 
tating on the progress of the past, what may not be 
expected ? Not, indeed, that the event we celebrate this 
day will ever again have its centennial. The work of 
the '' Council of Proprietors " is all but done. They 
must hereafter be not title-makers so much as title- 
keepers, or better yet, as once they gave up to sover- 
eignty the reins of government, they will do best to sell 
and Government will be wise to acquire from them 
their remaining claims of right and the custody of 
their records. This done, the mission of the Council 
of Proprietors of East New Jersey will be accomplished. 



Prof, Cook's Explsnrtory Statements 

AND MAPS. 



New Jersey is a part of that country granted by 
King Charles II. to his brother James, Duke of York, 
on the 1 2th of March, 1664. It was described as cov- 
ering " all the land from the west side of Connecticut 
river to the east side of Delaware bay." On the 
20th of June, 1664, the Duke of York sold to John Lord 
Berkeley and Sir George Carteret, " all that tract of 
land adjacent to New England, and lying and being to 
the westward of Long Island and Manhitas Island, and 
bounded on the east part by the main sea and part by 
Hudson's river, and hath upon the west Delaware bay 
or river, and extendeth southward to the main ocean as 
far as Cape May, at the mouth of Delaware bay ; and 
to the northward as far as the northermost branch of 
the said bay or river of Delaware, which is 41° 40' of 
latitude, and crosseth over thence in a straight line to 
Hudson's river in 41° of latitude; which said tract of 
land is hereafter to be called by the name or names of 
New Ce^serea or New Jersey," (Leaming and Spicer.) 

The grant to the Duke of York was made when the 
country was in the possession of the Dutch, and in a 
tmie of peace. The English fleet sent out to take pos- 
session of the grant accomplished its object on the 26th 
of April, 1664, and the ownership of the country was 



46 

quietly transferred from the Dutch to the English. As 
all the business relating to this description of the 
country and its transfers was transacted in England, and 
before the English had any accurate knowledge of its 
geography from their own occupation, it is probable 
that they were guided by the Dutch maps, for which 
that people had been acquiring material ever since the 
arrival of Henry Hudson, fifty-six years before this time. 
A copy is here inserted of the map published by 
Adrien Van der Donck'^' in 1656, and intended to accom- 
pany his description of the New Netherlands. The 



*Adrien Van der Donk was a Hollander of education and a lawyer by 
profession. He came out to America in 1642, and was settled in Albany as 
Sheriff of Rensselaerwyck. He afterwards purchased lands along the Hud- 
son between Spuyten-duyvel and Saw-mill creek. His neighbors called 
him Jonker, which is the Dutch for gentleman, and the present Yonkers, 
which is on the ground formerly owned by him, was probably named 
from this title of his. He was the only lawyer in the Dutch Colony, 
and the authorities refused to allow him to appear in court, as there was 
no one to oppose him. The second edition of his " Description of the 
New Netherlands," with this map accompanying it, was published at Am- 
sterdam in 1656. 

There are in existence several old Dutch maps of the country now 
covered by New Jersey and the adjoining parts of New York. They 
were published by different authors at dates varying from 1650 to 16S0, 
but are, evidently, all copies of one orignal, or possibly printed from the 
same plate. I have taken the map first from Van der Donck's, because 
he was long a resident here, but have compared it with Vischer's map 
of 1659, and have drawn the meridians and parallels from the latter, as 
it is said to have been the one used by the Commissioners in settling the 
partition line in 1769. Both maps are in the library of the New York 
Historical Society, and Van der Donck's is reprinted in Vol. I of the New- 
York Historical Society Collections, Vol. I, New Series. The copy of the 
map inserted here is of the exact scale of the original, and I have drawn 
on it the northern line of the province in 1664, and the quintipartite line 
of 1676. G. H. C. 



47 

map is without the ordinary hnes for latitude and longi- 
tude, but in his description he says that it extended 
from latitude 38° 53' to latitude 42° along- the coast. 
The author says that the Dutch have traveled inland 
"210 to 240 miles, and have trade with Indians who 
came more than ten or twenty days journey from the 
interior." His map shows New York and Esopus, now 
Kingston, and on the Delaware Fort Elsinboro, at the 
mouth of Salem creek, and Fort Nassau at the mouth of 
Timber creek. The Delaware river has the Schu3'lkill 
on its right bank, and on its left bank is the Musconnet- 
cong and Lake Hopatcong, and strangely enough this 
lake is connected with the Wallkill, which runs north- 
east and joins the Rondout creek and the Hudson at 
Kingston. Still farther up the Delaware we see the 
Navesink extending towards the northeast and joining 
Rondout creek, to flow into the Hudson. The latter is 
now the line of the Delaware, and Hudson Canal. In 
both these the heads of the streams are really separated 
only by short carrying places. The upper Delaware 
itself is shown only as an insignificant part of this stream. 
There was a Dutch settlement at Kingston in 1614, and 
settlers entered the valley of Rondout creek and passed 
from that over to the Delaware, and a good road was 
opened into the valley of that river in Sussex and War- 
ren counties before the English took New York. 

If we assume that this was the best map of the times, 
and used for locating the grant of New Jersey, the 
straight line from the most northerly branch of the 
Delaware may be drawn from the mouth of the Nave- 
sink (which is 41° 40' of the map), to the Hudson just 
south of Spuyten Duyvel creek (which is 41° north, of 
the map), and this line, with the Hudson, the Atlantic 



48 

and Delaware bay and river, were the boundaries of 
New Jersey as then understood. 

The Province was held as the joint property of Lord 
Berkeley and Sir George Carteret till after the war 
with the Dutch in 1673. In March 18, 1674, John 
Fenwick obtained for himself and Edward Byllinge the 
right of Lord Berkeley in the Province of New Jersey. 
(N. J. Archives, Vol. I, p. 185.) 

The first recorded notice of a division of the Province 
is in July 28 and 29, 1674, when the Duke of York re- 
newed the title to Sir George Carteret, and gave him 
" individually all the Province north of a line drawn 
from a certain creek called Barnegat to a certain creek 
in Delaware river next adjoining to and below a cer- 
tain creek in Delaware river called Renkokuskill." 
(Leammg and Spicer, p. 47.) This division, however, 
does not appear to have been generally recognized. 

In 1675 John Fenwick, who, with Edward Byllinge, 
had succeeded to the rights of Lord Berkeley, settled 
in Salem, but no evidence beyond this appears for a 
division of the Province.* 



*In the " Journal of a voyage to New York and other American Colo- 
nies in 1679-80, by Jasper Bankers and Peter Sluyter, Hollanders," it 
is said that " the east side of the river (Delaware), which is now entirely 
in the possession of the Quakers, has never been claimed by anyone, 
although here and there lived a Swede, as also among the Swedes here 
and there dwelt a Hollander. But when the whole country, in 1664, 
came to the crown of England under the Duke of York, the Duke or the 
King gave the land lying between the two rivers, namely the North 
river and the South river, the easterly part to my Lord Carteret, and the 
westerly part to my Lord Berkeley, but without a boundary line between 
them. This remained so a long time, when Mr. Byllinge, a brewer of 
London failed there, Berkeley, who was a great friend of his — asw ell as 
many other courtiers — and frequented his brewery daily, came to his 



49 

The terms of agreement for a division were, how- 
ever, made, probably in London, on July i, 1676, between 
Sir George Carteret on the one part, and William Penn, 
Gawen Lawrie, Nicholas Lucas and Edward Byllinge 
on the other part. By this agreement Sir George Car- 
teret was to have the easterly part, which was to be 
henceforth known as East New Jersey, and Penn and 
his associates to have the w^esterly part, henceforth to be 
known as West New Jersey. This "Quintipartite Deed" 
described the division line as a straight line drawn from 
the most northerly point of the Province to the most 
southwardly point of the east side of Little Egg Harbor. 
The wording of the deed is that " one equall moyety or 
half part" (Leaming and Spicer, p. 61), belongs to each 
party. If we take Van der Donck's map and draw a 
straight line from the mouth of the most northerly 
branch of the Delaware to the north side of Little Egg 
Harbor Inlet, and draw the northern boundary from 
the same point to the Hudson in latitude 41° on the 
map, the parts of the Pi-ovince, as showm by the map, 
will be nearly equal in area, if Staten Island is included 
in East Jersey. Staten Island is plainly in the original 
grant. (Proc. N. J. Hist. Soc, Vol. X.) 

Settlements increased rapidly after this division, and 

brewery and told him that as he, the brewer, was a broken man, he 
could advise him how to recover his fortune; that if he could furnish him 
a sum of money he would, by authentic writings, make over to him a 
tract of land which the King had given him. This suited the brewer 
very well, who succeeded in obtaining the money from his friends, and 
this land was accordingly transferred to him. But as the affairs of the 
brewer would not permit him to act himself, he had a friend named 
Fenwick, also a Quaker, who was to transact the business in his own 
name for him, the brewer, in consideration of which Fenwick was to 
enjoy a tenth of the whole westerly part." 
4 



5° 

it soon became necessary to survey and mark the parti- 
tion line. This was undertaken by the Surveyor- 
General of East Jersey, George Keith, in 1687. He 
began at Little Egg Harbor and surveyed a straight 
line for sixty miles, and untill it met the south branch of 
the Raritan near Three Bridges.'" This line was un- 
satisfactory to the Proprietors of West Jersey, and was 
not surveyed any further. It is still well known, and is 
marked as the division line between Ocean and Bur- 
lington counties. But it evidently runs to the west of 
any proposed division line, though the course run by 
Keith is correct for dividing New Jerse}' as given in Van 
der Donck's map into two equal parts ; but the map was 
not correct, and hence came difBculties in making the 
division. In 1688, Robert Barclay, Governor of East 
Jersey, and Daniel Coxe, Governor of West Jersey, 
both living in England, proposed to have the partition 
line of Keith, as far as surveyed, adopted, and then to 
continue the line across the south branch of the Raritan 
in a northeasterly direction to the north branch of the 
Raritan ; then up this branch to its north end, and 
thence in a straight line eastward to the nearest point of 
Passaic river, and thence down that river to its junction 
with Pequanac river, and u]) the latter as long as it runs 
northerly or northwesterly, to the bounds between the 

*This line was run " North & by West & 3 degrees & 5 minutes more 
Westerly (N 14 20' W) according to the needle or Magnetic position; 
and by natural position North North West and 50 minutes more westerly 
(N 23 20' W) according to the Agreeipent betwixt the Governor [and 
the] proprietors of both Provinces; the variation of the needle in this 
place of the world being nine degrees westerly." (Liber O., p. i, Surv.- 
Genl's Office, Perth Amboy.) 



51 

Provinces, or until it reaches 41° of latitude, and then 
to run due east to Hudson's river. (N. J. Archives, 
Vol. II, p. 34.) This proposal was not accepted by the 
Proprietors of East Jersey, but it has given rise to 
serious differences in locating surveys in the two divi- 
sions. This proposed division line is indicated on the 
map at the end of this paper, by a dotted line. 

After many other attempts to settle upon a satisfac- 
tor}' partition line, a commission from East and West 
Jersey and New York was appomted in 17 19, with au- 
thorit}" to ascertain the latitude of 41° 40' on the Dela- 
ware river. (Laws of N. J., 17 19, Nevill, Chap. 27, p. 
']']'.') This point was found and marked and accepted by 
the New York Commissioners as the westerly end of 
the New York and New Jersey boundary, and by the 
\Vest Jersey Commissioners as the northern end of their 
partition line. (Book D2 Deeds, p. 280, gives report, 
and G2 Deeds, gives map ; Sec. State's Office, Trenton.) 
It did not meet the final confirmation of the New York 
authorities, but it still remains as the established 
northern point of the partition line between East and 
West Jersey. The monuments can still be found at 
Cochecton, on the Erie Railway, about thirty miles 
above Port Jervis. The line, however, was not finally 
acceptable to the Proprietors of West Jersey, and the)' 
did not join in having it surveyed. 

The Proprietors of East Jersey, however, finally em- 
ployed John Lawrence, a surveyor in Upper Freehold, 
Monmouth county, to survey and mark the line, which 
Avork was done in the Fall of 1743. 



52 

TiiK boundary line of New York and New Jersev was 
long a subject of contention.* A number of patents 
were granted by the State of New York for lands in 
New Jersey, and the Proprietors of East Jersev made 
grants of land which New York claimed to be within 
her bounds. The East Jersey Proprietors claimed the 
straight line joining the point of 41° north latitude on 
the Hudson to 41° 40' on the Delaware, to be the just 
partition line. The Province of New York first claimed 
that the proper division would be made by a straight 
line from the head of Connecticut river to Reedy 
Island, at the head of Delaware bay. This preposterous 
claim was drawn from the wording of Charles II.'s 
first grant. It was, however, soon abandoned. It then 
claimed that a point opposite Yonkers, on the Hudson, 
should be the east end of the division line, and that it 
should run from there to the forks of the Delaware 
where the Lehigh joins that stream at Easton. After- 
wards the line from opposite Yonkers to Minisink 
Island, in the Delaware, was proposed. 

The question was finally submitted, by both Prov- 
inces, in 1763, to the decision of the crown, and Com- 
missioners for the purpose were appointed in October, 
1 767. They were Charles Stuart, John Temple, and Peter 
Randolph, Surveyors-General for the District of Quebec 
and of the Northern and Southern Districts of America 
respectively ; Andrew Elliot, Receiver-General of the 
quit-rents in the Province of New York ; Chambers 
Russell, Judge of the Court of Vice Admiralty for the 

* A movement was made for the defining and marking of this line in 
1685 or 16S6. See deposition of Governor Lewis Morris, Book F2, 
Deeds, p. 435, Sec. State's Office, Trenton, N. J. The line as indi- 
cated by Governor Morris, is marked on the map here inserted. 



53 

Province of Massachusetts ; William Allen, Chief-Justice 
of Pennsylvania ; Samuel Holland and William De 
Brahm, Surveyors-General of lands in the Northern 
and Southern Districts of America ; Andrew Oliver, 
Secretary of the Province of Massachusetts ; Charles 
Morris, Surveyor of lands and one of the Council ol 
Nova Scotia ; Peyton Randolph, Attorney-General and 
one of the Council of Virginia ; Benjamin Franklin, of 
the Province of Pennsylvania ; and Jared Ingersoll, of 
the Colony of Connecticut. John Jay was their Secre- 
tary. The Commissioners met in the rooms of the 
Chamber of Commerce, New York, on the i8th of June, 
1769, and continued their sessions until- October 7, when 
their decision was rendered. 

Their decision was " that the boundary or partition 
line between the said colonies of New York & New 
Jersey be a direct & straight line from the fork at the 
mouth of the river Mahackamack in the latitude of 
forty one degrees, twenty -one minutes and thirty seven 
seconds to Hudson's river at the [marked] rock, m the 
latitude of forty one degrees." 

This line did not satisfy either of the parties inter- 
ested, and there was much talk of rejecting it, by both. 
But after a time more conciliatory counsels prevailed, 
and it was accepted, and was confirmed by George HI. 
in 1773, and surveyed and marked in 1774. 

The changing of the western termination of the New 
York and New Jersey boundary from 41° 40' of latitude 
to 40° 21' 37", which is a point considerably farther east 
than the former one, created among the West Jersey 
Proprietors a desire to have the partition line between 
the two parts of the State re-surveyed and run as a 
straight line from Little Egg Harbor to the mouth of 



54 

the Nevesink at Carpenter's Point. They contended 
for this line many years, but it was never surveyed and 
marked. And in a lawsuit in regard to lands in the in- 
terval between Lawrence's line and this proposed line, 
which was decided by the Supreme Court of New 
Jersey in 1855, Lawrence's Ime, as marked by him, was 
declared to be the true division line [between East 
and West Jersey, (i Dutcher, pp. 1-40.) 

Staten Island, which is plainly within the bounds of 
New Jersey as described in the grants from the Duke 
of York to Lord Berkeley and Carteret, was early 
claimed by New York. Governor Philip Carteret 
claimed it for the New Jersey Proprietors, and it was 
one of the causes which led Governor Andros, of New 
York, to take Governor Carteret prisoner and convey 
hnn to New York for trial. Governor Carteret was 
sustained in his government. The question of jurisdic- 
tion was not settled finally till 1833, when, by mutual 
agfreement between Commissioners from the two States, 
Staten Island was included within the boundaries and 
jurisdiction of New York, This agreement was never 
confirmed by any action of the Proprietors of East 
Jersey. 

The Commissioners to settle the partition line in 1769 
had a map of New Jersey and the adjoining parts of 
New York prepared for their use by Lieutenant Bernard 
Ratzer, of the British army. This map cannot now be 
found, though the other papers of the Commission are 
in the library of the New York Historical Society. A 
certified copy of the map, which was prepared at the 
time for the use of Lord Sterling, one of the East 
Jersey Proprietors, is also in the same library. Another 
certified copy of the same map is in the library of Har- 



55 

vard College. This latter map was prepared for the 
advocates of the claims of New York, and it has on it 
the several partition lines which were proposed by that 
State. A reduced copy of this map is reproduced here, 
and I have drawn on it the line surveyed by George 
Keith in 1687; that surveyed by John Lawrence in 
1743 ; and that proposed by West Jersey after the New 
York and New Jersey partition line was established. I 
have also indicated on it by a dotted line the division 
between East and West Jersey proposed by Governors 
Barclay and Coxe in 1688, and have also dotted hues to 
show the course of the Raritan and Passaic rivers in 
New Jersey, and of Rondout creek in New York. 

The more accurate survey of the State shows that the 
division line adopted in the Ouintipartite Agreement 
and run out by John Lawrence, does not divide it into 
" two equal moietys," but West Jersey is much the 
largest in area, containing 4,595 square miles, while 
East Jersey has only 2,981 square miles, which is less 
than two-fifths the area of the State. The gore claimed 
by West Jersey after the New York and New Jersey 
boundary was settled, contains 648 square miles, and, if 
allowed, would have made West Jersey to contain more 
than twice as much land as East Jerse}^ The gore 
claimed by East Jersey, but which was set off to New 
York by the Commisioners in 1769, contained 291 
square miles. Staten Island contains fifty-eight square 
miles. 

The boundaries of East Jersey are now well ascer- 
tained and defined by the courts and by legislation. 
But the difficulties which have attended their settle- 
ment furnish remarkable instances of the controversies 
which arise from the use of incorrect maps. 



The Influence of the Proprietors 

In Founding the State. 



Mr. President, Geiitlenieii of the Board of Proprietors, 
Ladies and Gentlemen: 

"We, the people of the State of New Jersey, grateful to Almighty 
God for the civil and religious liberty which He hath so long permitted 
us to enjoy, and looking to Him for a blessing upon our endeavors to 
secure and transmit the same unimpaired to succeeding generations, do 

ordain and establish this Constitution." 

These words are the ordaining clause of the present 
constitution of New Jersey, which was adopted in 1844. 
They are not the introduction to the terms of an agree- 
ment ; they begin no compact. They are a creative 
fiat ; they call into being a law of laws for the common- 
wealth ; they institute a government. But the people 
who thus ordain, who exercise this highest original fac- 
ulty, are not themselves the product of a single creative 
act. The self-government here in full activity, the only 
real counterpart of the people, was a growth, to whose 
perfecting many agencies contributed. 

The nature of an act done by an absolute monarch 
and that of 'the ordaining act of a self-ruling communi- 
ty, are nowhere more clearly contrasted than in the 
feelings of interest with which we regard the two. The 
former excites no curiosity as to the origin of its pro- 



clucing power. It has the same source as the commands 
of a wilful child, and is as single in motive ; whereas the 
sovereign act of a people leads us to inquire by what 
process the many individual wills have been wrought 
into the one will, which, with a mature consciousness, 
imposes laws upon itself. The enduring constitution of 
a free people, always implies a historical growth in that 
people. 

The political life of the people of East New Jersey 
embraces five periods of varying length. The first, ex- 
cluding the discovery and the taking possession of the 
territory, begins with the grants of 1664, respectively 
Irom the King to the Duke of York and from him to 
Berkeley and Carteret, and ends in 1682, the date of 
the transfer of soil and rights of government to the 
twenty-four Proprietors — a period of eighteen years. 
The second period was twenty years long, to 1702, the 
date of the surrender of powers of government to the 
Crown. The third })eriod was that of the royal govern- 
ment from 1703 to 1776. The fourth from 1776 to the 
adoption of the Constitution of the United States in 
1788. The last, the national period of ninety-six years. 

Which one of these was the period distinctively forma- 
tive of the political character of the people of New 
Jersey ? The answer to this question does not lie upon 
the surface of the events of these divisions of the past, for 
strongly marked as are the lines which separate these 
periods, there is but one growth, in which they are all 
necessary factors; so complete is the unity of contmu- 
ous life, that the history of one involves the considera- 
tion of all. Our investigation brings us face to face 
with this fact, that all these separate stages are vitally 
essential to the complete development, therefore in one 



59 

sense equally essential, yet we are cheered in our 
further search by the reflection that there must have 
been a time whose peculiar relations to its past and fu- 
ture were more fully determinative of political charac- 
ter than those of any other period. Is there not in the 
life of every people a time, when the motives and 
thoughts and all the lines of social life of the past come 
together, and then all lengthen on into our present, so 
that if we trace them back they seem to have radiated 
from that point and further back all radiate toward 
that point, so that viewed as a whole, the influences and 
causes and effects of the remote and intervening past 
there intersect? This is true of the great world history. 
The ancient nations are all merged in the Roman 
Empire ; out of Rome all modern nations have emerged. 
The period of Roman supremacy was the point of inter- 
section where the lines of all human activity crossed. 
Something of the same sort is true of this State commu- 
nity, whose formative point is to be found in the time 
of the Proprietors ; the active principle in this case, 
however, was not Force, the world-conqueror, but the 
quiet beginnings of home rule. 

The grants of 1664 and the "concessions" from the 
Proprietors, Berkeley and Carteret, began the work of 
founding the separate community. The grants fixed the 
boundaries of the future State as a distinct part of the 
realm, owing allegiance and having a right of appeal to 
the English Crown, Do we value the separate exist- 
ence of our State? Let us be grateful then for the 
timeliness of the grant. Had it not come at this time, 
in all probability it would never have come. The 
concessions besides granting as it were by grace, cer- 
tain freedoms and immunities, particularly religious 



6o 

rights, establish a general representative assembly. The 
legislative powers granted to this assembly were ade- 
quate to all the needs of the community, comprising 
the power to appoint a time for the meeting of the 
assembly and its adjournment, to enact all laws neces- 
sary for the government of the Province, provided 
they were agreeable to the English constitution and 
not against the interest of the Proprietors or the con- 
cessions. The assembly had the further power to 
erect courts and determine their jurisdictions, the pow- 
er of taxation, of dividing the Province for local pur- 
poses, war powers and the power of naturalization. 
But these powers were not to be exercised independent- 
ly of the assent of those who represented the Proprietors 
— namely, the governor and a council appointed by 
him. The governor and his council were thus con- 
stituted a co-ordinate branch of the legislature and 
they received by the concessions some important 
executive and legislative functions to be exercised 
independently ; and as though implying that they might 
exercise powers not expressly delegated, they were 
prohibited from acting contrary to the laws of the 
Province, and a section taken from the Magna Charta 
and the Petition of Right forbade their imposing any 
tax without the consent of the General Assembly. The 
concessions thus formed a fundamental law adequate 
to the settlement and government of the Province. 
They gave a guarantee of some of the most imj^ortant 
rights and they left to the people a large control of 
their local concerns. They were very important in 
that they began in New Jersey the process of differ- 
entiating English self-government. Back of all, was 
the King and the Parliament — the English constitution. 



6i 

but there was a wide field for special law-making, 
which the orders of the King and the acts of Parliament 
did not enter. In this field the New Jersey General 
Assembly had somewhat of the dignity of Parliament. 
There was an implied recognition of a difference in the 
political life of the Province, in that but one of the vital 
parts of the English constitution as found in the Petition 
of Right was lodged in the concessions — the principle 
of taxation by the legislative power alone. 

It was further prophetic of a new era that Carteret, 
who had held the Island of Jersey against the Parlia- 
mentarians to the very last, should, with Berkeley, 
another Royalist, adopt this most important principle 
which the Revolution had gained as a part of the primal 
law of the new Jersey. 

This earliest constitution was in the nature of a com- 
pact with the individual settlers, and afterwards, as 
they came to be represented in the assembly, with the 
people as a body. But something else was needed to 
constitute the people within the bounds of New Jersey 
a body politic, in whom original political power might 
be said to inhere. This something was not the mere 
act declaring and establishing independence, but the 
generating and gradual growth of a spirit to which 
independence, in the fulness of time, should be not an 
unnatural act but a part of the regular process of 
development. The beginnings of such a growth Avere 
not directly supplied by the concessions which came 
from without. The new life must have its source in the 
people themselves. 

The first evidence of an original political life in the 
people was in their restlessness under the operation of 
the concessions. The representatives in the assembly 



very early insist upon a joint session with the gover- 
nor and council, where tiieir power from their superior 
numbers must over-rule that of the governor and his 
council. By successfully resisting this effort the repre- 
sentatives of the Proprietors secured to New Jerse}' in 
the earliest assemblies the manifold advantages of two 
houses in legislation. 

The next display of the popular spirit was in the 
refusal to pay the quit-rents stipulated in the conces- 
sions. This opposition was in the strictest sense illegal; 
so far as the concessions were building up the Province, 
it was disorganizing — the so-called disorganizing Assem- 
blies of 1 67 1 and 1672 going so far as to seek a virtual 
overthrow of the properly constituted provincial au- 
thority through the choice of James Carteret as presi- 
dent of the country. But the value of this illegal resist- 
ance in awakening and strengthening in the people the 
power to perfect an organic law was two-fold ; first, the 
imposition of quit-rents, even though sanctioned by the 
fundamental law, had something of a feudal nature, and 
it called up that spirit which the feudal system of the 
middle ages universally awakened, the spirit of resist- 
ance, a personal resistance, a defiance on the part of 
the individual. The tendency, then, was to strengthen 
individualism, individual character on its good side as 
well as its bad we shall find if we follow this influence 
far enough. The devotion to public liberty of New 
Jersey, like that of Virginia, has ever been infused with 
a marked zeal for personal freedom. This spirit in the 
southern State ma}^ be attributed in part to the isola- 
tion in which the planter lived. In New Jersey the 
series of early events connected with the Elizabethtown 
grants, the harassing influence of the demands for the 



^3 

quit-rents and like causes, contributed also to the forma- 
tion of the same characteristic. But as individualism 
grew, the sense of the value of government was not, in 
the end, impaired, and individual responsibility for it 
was quickened. A second result of the differences 
between the government of the first Proprietors and the 
people was the development of the town as an essential 
factor in the Province. Almost from the first these 
political units of the State had, through the grant of 
large prudential powers from the governor and council, 
a vigorous life. As distinct and integral political organi- 
zations the towns, whether together in the assembly or 
in their separate town meetings, were made the instru- 
ments of opposition to the representatives of the 
Proprietors. 

The various immediate objects of opposition to the 
governor and council were not gained either by the 
individual man or by the towns, and this failure was not 
without influence in teaching them real self-government. 
They learned that it was not the caprice of the indi- 
vidual, nor the shifting opinion of all within the circle, 
whose centre was the one market place. True, the 
towns had by grant from the Proprietors their special 
privileges, but these could not form a body of law for 
the Province, nor supersede its necessity. So men and 
the towns find their way back to the concessions. The 
deputies to the General Assembly are still in opposition 
to the governor and council in 1681, but now they 
insist that the concessions are to be taken according to 
the letter, without any interpretation whatsoever ; that 
the constituting of courts by governor and council, 
and the explanation of the concessions made in 1672 by 
Berkeley and Carteret, are a breach of the concessions, 



64 

and the deputies declare the inhabitants of the Province 
not obliged to conform themselves thereunto." 

The assembly for the first time in the history of the 
Province was then dissolved by the governor, an act 
which the deputies unanimously protested w^s contrary 
to the concessions and an innovation of the government. 
The beginnings of the power and the spirit of complete 
self-government were here manifest. They deliberately 
chose the concessions as the basis of their political life. 

In 1683 the deputies attempt to " disown " the conces- 
sions, but now the governor and council are strict in 
their adherence to the " foundation of Government." f 
Thus the concessions, alternately favored and opposed, 
are rooted more firmly, just as that tree is more firmly 
rooted, upon which the wind blows from various 
quarters. 

A happier evidence of the beginnings of the higher 
political life of New Jersey as a distinct community, 
was afforded in 1680. The spirited opposition of the 
deputies to the governor of New York, when he at- 
tempted to usurp authority over the Province of New 
Jersey, the manly resistance of Governor Carteret to the 
same usurper, and particularly his letter in which he de- 
nies a right of levying duties, in the interest of the Duke 
of York, without the consent of the New Jersey assem- 
bly, unite for the time being, all the forces, to render an 
enduring service in the making of the State. The service 
was the greater, because of the simultaneous action of 
West Jersey for the same noble end.:|; This effort of the 



* N. J. Archives, I., 355, 356, 359. 

f Record of Governor and Council, p. 80. 

J Smith's History of New Jersey, p. 117. 



65 

two Provinces, successful in vindicating their rights to 
freedom from taxation was a triumph for the agencies 
which would one dav demand independence for the re- 
united halves of New Jersey and for the united Colo- 
nies, while the influence of the victory for equal 
commerce lived in New Jersey until the adoption of 
the Constitution of the United States. The action of 
Carteret in defending the jurisdiction of New Jersey 
against the encroachments of Andros, aroused a hostility 
to the latter in England, which brought about his recall 
and helped to awaken the spirit which later in England 
defended the cause of America. 

In the first period, then, this much had been done to 
form a new people. Under the concessions, the Prov- 
ince began to be settled ; individualism as a necessary 
part of self-government gains greater significance ; 
town government is begun and influences the growth 
of the embryo State, while the Province as a 
whole begins to be something more than a mere name ; 
it is a part of the English realm, but a distinct part and 
not a dependency of New York. 

When the rights of soil and of government were trans- 
ferred to the twenty-four Proprietors in 1682, many of 
the conditions which are of universal value in the 
making of a State, were present. The time, the last 
quarter of the seventeenth century, was one of general 
political formation. The Thirty Years' War had run 
its disastrous course ; William of Orange fought abso- 
lutism on the Continent, and the Revolution of 1688 
began a new era in England ; the Great Elector, after 
the battle of Fehrbellin, was laying the first foundations 
of Prussia. Only France was given over to absolutism, 
but by the revocation of the Edict of Nantes she gave 
5 



66 

in the Huguenots some of the best of formative elements 
to South CaroHna. Massachusetts and the New- 
England colonies began a new career, when the attempt 
at centralization by James II. failed and their charters 
were restored. In 1684, many of the colonies joined 
in a defensive league against the savages, the second of 
the minor prophecies of the great Union to come. 

The young community shared in the influences of the 
general movement ; and there were special conditions 
which favored her growth. A law of the General As- 
sembly of 1676 speaks of the Province as being "in its 
minority." * Like a pnnce one day to be a sovereign, 
who attains his majority at the age of eighteen, so New 
Jersev after the first period of eighteen years, was ready 
to begin the work which should fit her for the higher 
duties and powers. Here was a people beginning to 
prosper, but hopeful rather than contented ; of conflict- 
ing motives, but the motive to union always in the end 
prevailing ; in close relations with nature, w^ho imparted 
to them qualities which they could never lose but must 
transmit to their posterity. She gave them rich prom- 
ises; "here is a brave country," writes Rudyard, the 
first Deputy Governor under the new Proprietors ; 
•' here is a gallant, plentiful countiy," writes Lawric, his 
successor. Penn took a view of the land and said he 
had never seen such before in his life. " The people," 
said Rudyard, " are generally a sober professing people, 
wise in tlieir generation, courteous in their behaviour, 
and respectful to us in ofifice among them/'f The 
people in accepting the early concessions, had " expecta- 
tion," so they said in West Jersey, "of some increase of 

* Learning and Spicer, I20, 122. f Smith, 169, 170, 179. 



67 

those freedoms and privileges, enjo3'ed in " England, 
and the expectation grew with the growth of the Prov- 
ince and with the change of the proprietaries. It was 
a tendency that could not be stayed until the people 
were, in their own phrase, "■owners of their liberty^ ^' 
Ho\v was this tendency met by the twenty-four Propri- 
etors ? Whatever their theory was as to the necessity 
of a firmness of administration to gain their pecuniary 
rights, in other respects their conduct harmonized with 
the wishes of the people. In "a brief account of New 
Jersey, published in 1682, by the present Proprietors, 
for information of all inclined to settle in that country," 
they say that in the concessions, provision was made for 
liberty in religion and property in estates, and " we," 
they continue, " shall be ready and desirous to make 
such further additions and supplements to the said Con- 
stitution, as shall be thought fit for the encouragement 
of all planters and adventurers, and for the further 
settling the Colony with a sober and industrious 
people." + Whatever change, then, the Proprietors 
might make in the organic law could only be construed 
in the light of this promise, the spirit of which as well 
as the letter, bespoke the largest liberty for the emigrant. 
So too, the seal of the twenty-four Proprietors, as they 
undertook the duty of government, was in keeping with 
this natural character of the Province and of its people. 
Every official act of the twenty-four Proprietors received 
the stamp of this seal, on which were exquisitely en- 
graved the emblems of plenty and of even-handed 
justice. Surrounding the emblems were these legends ; 
'' Righteousness exalteth a nation. Its God giveth in- 

*Ibid, 120, 124. f Smith, 542. 



68 

crease." Thus every act of theirs testified to their 
recognition of a God-given increase of the fundamental 
law as well as of the fruits of the earth. 

The letter in which the Proprietors announced to the 
people their purchase of the Province, breathes the 
same spirit. " We desire nothing more than to approve 
ourselves as you may find yourselves happy." " Your 
interest is now so bound up with ours that we cannot 
suffer if you prosper, nor prosper where you are m- 
jured." And they promise " everything that may be 
needful toward the good government and advan- 
tage of the Colony."* 

The seal of the Proprietors was further mdicati ve of the 
character of the new government. The seal of Berkeley 
and Carteret bore their coats of arms and thus sug- 
gested a personal government. The seal of the twenty- 
four was absolutely impersonal, so far as men were 
concerned ; God alone was recognized as the author of 
the growth and exaltation of a nation. ; It was almost 
as though human direction were .withdrawn, and ab- 
stract principles, free from the impress of the mind even 
of great men, were left to work their own work among 
the people. The Proprietors were rather the servants 
than masters controlling the principles of government 
which were becoming active in New Jersey. " It is not 
possible for you to understand," so writes Lawrie, the 
Deputy Governor, to the Proprietors, " what is for the 
good of the Province as I do that am here,"t and in re- 
sponse, the Proprietors adopt the act of the first of 
August, 1684, in which they acknowledge the necessity 
" that there be full ami ample poiver constituted hi some 

* Learning and Spicer, 167. f Smith, 178. 



69 

persons in the Province, to do all things that may contribute 
to the good and advancement of the sained This instru- 
ment transfers immediate supervision of the Proprie- 
tors' interests and rights from England to commission- 
ers in America.* 

Another act, giving ampler powers and more practi- 
cable conditions to the new American Board of Proprie- 
tors, and freer self-direction to the people, was adopted 
a few months later, and two hundred years ago to-day.-f 
It is fitting that those who hold the power of the State 
in trust and representative citizens from all parts should 
commemorate these acts, for they were significant in 
the founding of the State. They were as important to 
the development of political power in eastern New 
Jerse}^ as "the vote, " two generations before, by which 
in the transfer of the Massachusetts Company to Ameri- 
ca, " a commercial corporation became the germ of an 
independent commonwealth. ":|: Under these acts, the 
first full exercise within the borders of the State, of the 
proprietary power of revising legislation took place two 
hundred years ago the coming Thanksgiving day. " To 
all Christian people and others to whom these presents 
shall come," the American Board of Proprietors address 
their act confirming the laws of the past two years. || 
In the volume of seven hundred pages, containing these 
early laws and constitutions, it is the only act so ad- 
dressed. We may readily infer that the Deputy Gov- 
ernor and his fellow Proprietors who signed the act, were 
conscious that it indicated a new adjustment of political 



* Learning and Spicer, 195. f Learning and Spicer, ic 

:]: Bancroft, Hist, of U. S., Cent. Ed. I, 275. 
II Learning and Spicer, 2S1. 



70 

forces. The Proprietors become as far as possible 
identified with the Province. The new Board share 
Avith the people in the making of the law, while with all 
citizens they are equally subject to the provincial law.* 
But we arrive at the full measure of the importance of 
this assimilation of proprietar}- and popular government 
when by the study of the events of the next half genera- 
tion, we learn to know the principle of government, 
which the Board of Proprietors grew more and more to 
represent. It was neither of the three historic forms, 
monarchy, aristocracy or democracy. It stood for 
essentially the modern principle of the non-interfer- 
ence of government, the laissez faire, the hands-off 
theory, the least government the best. It gave the 
opportunity for the action of a self-determining power 
within the four bounds of New Jersey, by virtue of 
which, the inhabitants of that portion of the globe could 
as one body say with truth, a century and a half later, 
" all political power is inJurcnt in the people."+ It is 
true, the twenty-four Proprietors had prepared for the 
Province a new organic law— the so-called Fundamen- 
tal Constitutions, which, though sanctioning in part, 
were designed to supersede the concessions, and they 
instructed their Deputy Governor to " order the new 
scheme of government to be passed in an Assembly.":}: 
But they tacitly acquiesced in its rejection. In a con- 
ference of the deputies with the governor and his 
council on the 19th of April, 1686, Governor Lawrie 
made inquiry " of what answer " they gave touching the 
scheme of government laid before them a few days })re- 



* Scot's model in V^hitehead's East Jersey under the Props. , 398, 447, 449. 
f Constitution of 1844. :j: Learning and Spicer, 175. 



71 

viously. The deputies answer " tJiat tJicy apprehended 
the same did not agree with the Constitution of this Prov- 
ince, and that thev understood that the same were nozuise 
binding, except passed into a lazu by the General Assembly^ 
The s^overnor's council had already given it as their 
sense " tJiat the same did not agree zvitJi the Constitution 
of these America)! parts."'^ 

The governor did not press the matter, nor did the 
Proprietors further insist on it, and in this simple way 
the great act was done, at once asserting and confirming 
the ordaining power. The people of East New Jersey 
had determined that by their own authority their 
organic law should be. 

By refusing the fundamental constitutions and plant- 
ing themselves on the concessions, the people secure all 
that had been gained in the first period, and the Pro- 
prietors, sharing in this essentiall}^ ordaining act of the 
people, the rights of self-government became indefeasi- 
ble. It was only natural, then, that in an act passed 
thirteen years later, declarative of rights and privileges, 
many rights and privileges should be included, which 
had hitherto never found expression in the Province. f 
The people were creating the organic law. It was a 
solemn act. " The wJiole Honsc of Representatives,'' so 
runs the record of the governor and council, "-came be- 
fore this Board and gave in the Bill of Rights * '^ 
passed their Honsc, which was read here and passed this 
Board.\ This act, including man}- of the provisions of 
the concessions, has also many features in common with 
the government which the people ordained in 1776. 

* Record of Governor and Council, 125, 126, 128, 131. 

f Learning and Spicer, 368. 

X Record of Governor and Council, 219. 



72 

With this act, which bears the date ol the 13th of 
March, 1699, together with that of the 19th of April, 
1686, the work of the I^roprictors in helping to lay the 
legal foundation of the State was complete. It was an 
anomalous government. An idea grew up after the 
revolution of 1688 that it was no rightful government. 
King William contested its title, and the people of East 
New Jersey petitioned the Crown against the Proprie- 
tors, and factions sprang up among themselves. Of the 
original Proprietors, but/<^;//r were left in 1702 to sur- 
render what they admitted in the instrument of sur- 
render was a pretended right to government, but the 
fact remains, that better than they, or those about them, 
knew, they built for all time. 

Three-quarters of a century must pass before inde- 
pendence was declared, but the people of New Jersey 
were already capable of an independent political life. 
In fact, from 1689 to 1692 there was no general govern- 
ment. The local administration of law secured the 
peace and welfare of the whole Province. In the con- 
test with the royal governor, Lord Cornbury, in 1707, 
the representatives of the people reject with abhorrence 
the charge of the council that they purpose throwing off 
their allegiance and revolting from the Crown of Eng- 
land. So they abhorred the thought, even after the 
War for Independence was begun, but they were no 
less capable of independence had it come two genera- 
tions earlier. We may note that in this same reply to 
the complaint of the Lieutenant-Governor and the 
Council to the Queen, the people do not disclaim the 
right to judge, as was charged, whether royal orders 
conformed to law.* The right of self-rule, which they 

* Smith, 347, 3S6. 



73 

had gained in the time of the Proprietors and under the 
influences of their government, they kept until all the 
Colonies were equallj^ read)^ to assert with them that 
this right should be national in America. 

But we find evidences elsewhere than in the growth 
of the fundamental law, that under the influence of the 
Proprietors the State, as we know it, was gradually 
forming. 

No stronger influence moulds the life of the people of 
a State than that which comes from its minor political ^ 

divisions. The town and the county have shaped the 
life of the States of the Union. In this respect there 
are three classes of States ; those in which the town is 
the political unit — the six States of New England ; 
the second, those in which the county is the unit — 
the States of the South ; the third, those of the " com- 
promise system,'' as it has been called — a mixed organi- 
zation of county and township prevailing in the Middle 
States and the West. 

Town government sprang into a vigorous, self- 
directing life at the time of the first Proprietors,"- and 
county government had its feeble beginnings ; f but it 
was only in the time of the second proprietary govern- 
ment that the two organizations grew into a composite 
whole. 

The temptation is great to dwell upon the history of 
this phase of State development from this time on ; to 

* During this period local government was exercised by virtue of 
charter rights in seven towns, namely : Bergen, Elizabeth, Newark, 
Middletown, Piscataway, Shrewsbury and Woodbridge. 

f By a law of the General Assembly of the 13th of November, 1675, 
the towns were grouped into counties with no very definite limits, and 
with the sole purpose of erecting courts. Leaming and Spicer, 96. 



74 

show how the functions of tlie two local divisions were 
adjusted ; to point out the unconscious beginnings of 
the forms and harmonics which exist to-day, but the 
present purpose of our study Avill not admit of a state- 
ment of its every result. Only in general, it may be 
said, that to this period is due the founding of that 
system which, more than any other influence, gives 
individuality of character to the self-government of the 
State.*- 

The constituting of courts is another important forma- 

*A view of the methods of taxation, as found in the tax laws of the 
Proprietary period, will, perhaps, best show the germination and gradual 
growth of local government in New Jersey. 

CONCESSIONS. 
1664. — By the Concessions the General Assembly has power to lay 
taxes upon lands or persons within whatever local divisions it may erect 
within the Province. (Learning and Spicer, 16.) 

LAWS OF GENERAL ASSEMBLY. 

May. 166S — First tax, thirty pounds — five pounds to each to7i.'n — in 
country pay to be delivered by inhabitants to Jacob Mollins, of Eliza- 
bethtown. (L. and S., 81.) 

November, 1675. — Towns and plantations grouped into counties ior the 
sole purpose of erecting courts. These counties have no very definite 
bounds, and they receive no names. (L. and S., 96.) 

December, ibi^.— I^rovincial Treasurer appointed, to whom to'wn con- 
stables are to bring in the rate. (L. and S., 103, 104.) 

December, 1675. — Assembly proposes to raise fifty pounds. Governor's 
arrears, by subscription to be paid to constables of tomans. (L. and 
S., 104.) 

April, 1676. — Three select men to be chosen by the freeholders of every 
to7vn to assess Governor's arrears not subscribed. (L. and S., 117.) 

October, 1676. — Constables of every to'on to receive and compel pay- 
ment of rates levied by the General Assembly. (L. and S., 121.) 

1678. — Country rates levied upon land. Governor's salary paid by 
poll taxes. (L. and S., 129, 130, 125.) 

March, 1682. — " For the better governing and settling courts," in the 



75 

tive element. An authority not lightly to be questioned 
says that Lord Cornbury " is entitled to the credit of hav- 
ing laid the foundation of our whole judicial system "* 
But the beginnings of it seem to date from the legislation 
of this period. Here we have the Common Law Courts 
in town f and county,:}: a Supreme Court for the Prov- 



Province, the General Assembly divides it into four counties, which 
receive names and definite bounds. (L. and S., 229.) 

1682. — Justices of County Court of Quarter Sessions impowered to as- 
sess tax for building a jail in each county and a pound in every town, and 
to appoint collectors and receivers of this tax. (L. and S., 26S. Com- 
pare AUinson's Laws, 14.) 

December, 1682. — Tax of fifty pounds, apportioned among the counties, 
to be assessed in each county by six men appointed by the Assembly, 
upon improved lands and stocks. Town constables to act as collectors, 
and to pay the sums collected to the Treasurer of tlie Province. (L. and 
S., 274.) 

In 1684 the West Jersey Assembly impowers each tenth to lay and 
levy road taxes, and to choose six assessors and two collectors of a 
general tax. (L. and S., 494.) 

April 19, 1686. — Four or five assessors to be chosen by the people of 
each town to levy rates for highways laid out by County Commisioners 
(named by the General Assembly, L. & S., 256), and taxes for all other 
public charges within the respective limits of the tozuns ; the rates and 
taxes so made to be presented to the Court of Quarter Sessions in the 
respective counties. The Justices of the Court to approve, amend and 
confirm them with the consent of the majority of the assessors. (L. 
and S., 294.) 

The aDove act, in a large sense the beginning of combined toion and 

* Field's Provincial Courts, Coll. of N. J. Hist. Soc, Vol. III. 

f An elective Court in every town having cognizance of cases to the 
value of forty shillings, a Justice of the Peace to be one of the Court. 
Leaming and Spicer, 99, 100, 229. 

X In every county. Courts of Sessions or County Courts, whose sessions 
were at first annual and afterwards bi-ennial and quarterly. Leaming 
and Spicer, 96, 230, 268, 347. 



76 

ince," distinctions between law and equity jurisdic- 
tion ; t provisions for appeals on account of errors or 
other grounds,:}: for regular prosecutions and issuing of 
processes! — in short, a systematization of the administra- 
tion of justice. 

Other influences came from the people cff that day to 
determme what the people of this day should be. The 
very homelines of much of the legislation of those 
twenty years shows that self-rule was thrusting out its 
roots into the best of soil, and yet on the other hand, 
the General Assembly of this feeble Province could 
rise to the dignity of enacting in a separate law, the 



county action in the matter of taxation, was passed on April ig, 1686, the 
same day on which the Deputies refused the Fundamental Constitutions. 

The birth of the mixed town and county system, the special form of 
New Jersey local rule, was thus coincident with the birth of self-govern- 
ment in the Province as a whole. (Record of Governor and Council of 
East Jersey, 1682-1703, pp. 131, 132.) 

This act was modified nine years later, 1695, but only to facilitate its 
operation. It was, therefore, thereby virtually confirmed. (L. and S., 
355; Compare inter al Allinson's Laws, pp. 14, 35, 60, 115; P.evised 
Statutes, Sec. 12, p. 129.) 

May, 1688. — To withstand invasion of the French, specific tax on land, 
cattle, horses, swine, and poll tax on male persons of sixteen, to be 
levied and collected by County Commissioners appointed by the As- 
sembly. Constables of each tozvn to receive estimates of taxable prop- 

* A Court of Common Right with original and appellate jurisdiction, 
to have cognizance " of capital, criminal, or civil causes of equity, to be 
the Supreme Court of the Province," with quarterly sessions. Learning 
and Spicer, 232. In W. J., 1693, a Supreme Court of Appeals, Leaming 
and Spicer, 517, and a Court of Oyer and Terminer, Learning and Spicer, 
520. 

f Leaming and Spicer, 232, 34S. % Leaming and Spicer, 232. 

II Leaming and Spicer, 253. 



77 

thirty-ninth and fortieth chapters of the great Charter; 
" the essential clauses," as Hallam calls them.* 

In the formation of this body of law, there were 
many conflicts ; there was turbulence at times in the 
Province, but the greatest of living historians has said, 
that " all progress comes through conflict." Is it not 
true, indeed, that peace has her victories, because war 
has had hers. A recent address f before the New York 
Chamber of Commerce is most suggestive in this regard 
in respect to our national wars. Does not the same 
hold true in the smaller sphere ? 

On the freedom of religion, the concessions allowed 
no restriction, not even by " any law or statute or clause 
contained, or to be contained, usage or custom of the 
realm of England," but the people in their Law of 
Rights in 1699, follow the leading of the English 



erty, and deliver them to their respective County Commissioners. Taxes 
to be paid by the inhabitants to the respective County Treasurers ap- 
pointed by this act for the first time by the General Assembly. (L. and 
S., 30:.) 

1692. — Method of levying and collecting tax similar to that of 1688. 
(L. and S., 321.) 

In this year the West Jersey Assembly empower each county court to 
appoint County Collectors of a poll tax. (L. and S., 510) 

1693. — The county growing in importance. Each to^un \r\ the county 
was impowered to choose one or more men to join with the justices of 
the county court annually, to adjust the debts of the county and assess 
taxes for their payment. (L. and S., 333-) 

1693. — King's tax for defence against the French. Twenty men to be 
raised proportionately from the five counties. To maintain these soldiers 
a tax of four hundred and thirty pounds in specifics to be raised. This 

* Learning and Spicer, 240. 

f That of Mr. Evarts, at the one hundred and sixteenth anniversary 
dinner of the New York Chamber of Commerce. 



78 

Bill of Rights of 1689, and decree intolerance 
of the Roman Catholic religion. In the Constitu- 
tion of 1776, too, civil rights are guaranteed to Protest- 
ants alone. Only in the Constitution of 1844 has New 
Jersey turned to the times of the Proprietors and 
brought back again the fearless spirit of complete re- 
ligious liberty. 

For education, the earliest town charters granted by 
the Proprietors, provided ; in Woodbridge, one hun- 
dred acres were to be laid out for the maintenance 
of a free school," and school lands were to be exempt 
from quit-rents. The towns established schools, and 
laws of 1693 and 1695 provided for rates and the 
regulation of schools by selectmen. f 

act appoints one Commissioner for each fo-.oit, who receives from the 
town constable estimates of all ratables in the town. These Commis- 
sioners meet in a body at Perth Amboy and equalize the assessment. 
The taxes collected by Cotinty Receivers appointed by this act. (L. 
and S., 334.) 

October, 1694. — Act for the appointment of County Treasureis . The 
justices of each county court to appoint at their discretion a County- 
Treasurer to disburse county funds in paying for the destruction of wolves, 
providing for the poor and orphans, and defraying the county debts. 
(L. and S., 350.) 

1695. — One hundred and fifty pounds in silver, proportioned among the 
towns of the Province and the counties of Monmouth and Somerset, to 
be levied upon all estates, real and personal, as each toum and the two 
counties named shall adjust the rates. General Assembly appoints the 
collectors, vacancies among whom are to be filled by the town, or in the 
case of Monmouth and Somerset by the county. (L. and S., 353.) 

1698. — An act for making town rates to defray town charges. Each 
to-tvn chooses three men to assess for (i) representatives' wages, (2 
charges about highways, (3) rates for the poor, (4) constables' wages, (5) 

* Whitehead's East Jersey under the Proprietors, 287. 
f Leaming and Spicer, 328, 358. 



79 

We must not leave out of sight the uifluence of the 
Proprietors in gathering this i)rovincial population from 
many parts — from New and Old England, from Scot- 
land, from Ireland, to join them to the Dutch already 
here to make the one people. 

The latest writer on American Colonial History sa3"s 
that the colonists of New JeTsey had a strong respect 
for vested rights.* May we not attribute the feeling to 
the experience, which grew out of the early and safe 
system of the proprietary grants, and, on the other hand, 
of the disputes, in some parts, which enforced the 
necessity of secure titles ? 

The contest the people had to establish their funda- 
mental law, taught them the value of a written constitu- 
tion and the absolute need that law should conform 
thereto. Though it grew up in part by legislative 
enactment and though the constitution of 1776 carries 
the implication of possible legislative amendment, yet 
in a spirit, born as we may believe in those early days, 
and certainly expressed in the earliest constitution of 

killing wolves, (6) repairing burying places, (7) schools, (8) pounds, (9) 
clerks' wages. This assessment to be presented to any justice of the 
peace of the county, who may approve or amend the same with the con- 
sent of two of the three persons chosen as above. (L. and S., 372.) 

1698. — General tax of six hundred and seventy-five pounds. The act 
introduces a system of taxation on real estate by polls and specifics 
nearly identical with that later adopted by the State Legislature. (Com- 
pare Gordon's Gazetteer, pp. 57, 58; also Laws of West Jersey, 1684, 
1685, 1693, 1696, 1697, 1700; L. and S., 494, 505, 521-2, 549, 561, 574.) 

By this act an assessor or commissioner was named by the Assembly 
for each toiini. These assessors to meet in the capital of the Province to 
equalize assessments. They also serve as collectors and receivers. (L. 
and S., 376.) 

* Lodge's English Colonies in America, 278. 



So 

West Jersey, Chiel-Justice Brcarly in 1780, gave a de- 
cision of prime historical importance. Other States 
than New Jersey have been called the formative centres 
of the various influences which have combined to bring 
about the one great result — this mighty union ; but 
New Jersey has at times shown the way. This decision 
of her Supreme Court was the first of the series which 
established the principle and at last made it a part of 
the Constitution of the United States, that an unconsti- 
tutional law is no law and it is the function of the 
judiciary to say so."^' 

The second occasion when New Jersey showed the 
way to her sister States, was when she sent her delegates 
to the Annapolis Convention in 1786. This convention 
was called to secure uniform regulations of commerce in 
the Articles of Confederation, then the Constitution of 
the Union. New Jersey was not unmindful of the strug- 
gles she had had, in the times of the Proprietors to secure 
from New York a commerce rightfully her own, but ris- 
ing from that consideration, to her perhaps more import- 
ant than to any other State, for she was like a cask flowing 
at both ends, tapped by New York and by Philadelphia, 
she suggested that the amendment should include, be- 
sides a power over commerce, " other important mat- 
ters." The convention caught at the suggestion, and 
Hamilton, the herald of the better union, proclaimed it 
as the basis of the call to the Convention at Philadel- 
phia, which gave us the Constitution of the United 
States. 

In the times of the Proprietors, we do not find in 



* The decision is referred to by Ch. J. Kirkpatrick, in State vs. Park- 
hurst, IV^ Halstead, 444. 



8i 

New Jersey many germs of an American Union, though 
in one or two cases, the assembly, " sensible of broth- 
erly love to our neighbors, '' voted men and money for 
the war on the frontiers against the French. This 
spirit was with New Jersey of somewhat later growth ; 
it came in royal times, but in the war for Independence, 
New Jersey ranked with Connecticut next to the first in 
the number of men she furnished, and other evidences 
were not wanting of a zeal for the good of the whole 
Union. But in the formation of the " more perfect 
union," she represented rather the principle of local- 
ism ; the home rule of those early days had grown 
into the idea of the indestructibility of the State This 
idea she brought into the federal convention and around 
the banner of the " Jersey Plan," Livingston and Pater- 
son and Brearly fought for it. When the existence of 
the principle was assured by the grant of equality of 
State representation in the Senate, how gladly did these 
her champions leap forward to give to a nationalism 
based upon localism, ample powers for the greatest 
work that ever fell to the lot of one people. 

The Legislature of New Jersey had been the first m 
America to apply to the Union, the phrase of Montes- 
quieu — " a Federal Republic." Unanimously her people 
ratified the Constitution of the United States, in which 
it was made real. 

The States of Greece, which one may call the creative 
States, those which made her the leader of the civiliza- 
tion ot the world, had together nearly the same area as 
New Jersey. By the coast line and the lines of the 
hemming mountain ranges, the forces of their life were 
turned inward ; so New Jersey was confined by careful 
bounds, and her life grew from the forces concentrated 
6 



-%^ i\ 



82 

within her borders. When absolutism swept down 
upon Greece from the East, she repelled the Persian 
invader on the plain of Marathon. On the plain of 
Monmouth, the humble commonwealth, aided by her 
sister States, fought, if not the decisive battle, yet the 
one prophetic of the final overthrow of English absolu- 
tism ; for after it Frederick the Great said, " Americh 
is lost to England." But the destroyer of Greece came 
from the West. The self-government ot Greece, which 
was her glory and the cause of her power, was engulfed 
in the imperialism of Rome. When the imperial idea 
arose in the Western Hemisphere, promising a new 
nation of gigantic proportions, and with the possibilities 
of unbounded Continental strength, with the aid of the 
other pent-up States, all but one proprietary. New Jersey, 
in the Federal Convention, lodged in the foundation of the 
indissoluble Union the integrity of the individual State. 
New Jersey was never enrolled among the World- 
States, but happier than Greece, she insured to herself 
an unending future. She made her continued existence 
the condition and the cause of imi)erial strength 
Largely through her influence and further back, the in- 
fluence of her founders, local and national self-govern- 
ment are blended, yet each keeps its identity. The 
fruits we enjoy grow on the tree of this self-rule : 

the one great tree, that up from old time 

Growing, contains in itself the whole of the virtue and life of 
Bygone days, drawing now to itself all kindreds and nations, 
And must have for itself the whole world for its root and branches. 



P "07 



BI-dEWTEWWIAL (JELEBRATIOW 



OF THE 



BOARD OF 



^mericait pr^j^rleforfi 



OF 



East Nbw Jersey, 



At Perth Aiiiboy, Tuesday, NoA^emlier 25, 1884. 




NEWARK, N. J.: 
Press ok the Advertiser Printing IIolse. 

1885. . 



